Bad blood feels like a long-form Business Insider piece that is so captivating and unbelievable that it was meant for the big screen.

As Silicon Valley entrepreneurs become “modern day rockstars”, itā€™s difficult to believe the degree to which some individuals go to achieve success. Elizabeth Holmesā€™ life had the perfect backstory, characters and sequence of events where bright young individuals, with a passion to do good in the world get caught up in making the wrong decisions that spiral out of control.

With a clear linear progression, and little technical content, the audible format of this book is very easy to consume. The voice the narrator chose to use for Elizabeth throughout the book also adds an interesting element that makes you support, question and fear Elizabeth as the story progresses. You start out cheering for her as a young and helpless entrepreneur, but ultimately learn to view her as a sociopath.

“What would you do if you couldnā€™t fail?”. This book covers exactly that.

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Elizabethā€™s backstory includes an extremely successful family tree that blew away their wealth a couple generations earlier. What better driver can there be to redeem the family honor? She was always hard working, passionate and driven. Ambitious from a young age, multilingual and a Stanford student. Sounds like she was set up for success, no?

From afar it seems like she was doing everything right, until she wasnā€™t. She was following every entrepreneurial advice and self-help book thatā€™s out on the market. She had an idol, Steve Jobs, whom she adored and tried to emulate. She always surrounded herself with people smarter and more experienced than herself. She was firm and assertive as a company executive should be. Her narrative had a longterm North Start vision from day one. She took marketing, raising money and hiring very seriously from day one. She secured the secrecy of her companyā€™s IP which was key to securing funding for the companyā€™s long-term success. This seems to comply with what investors like to see.

As an engineer, I often want to believe that “If I build it, the users will come”. I like to believe that technology is the core piece of every business. I like to believe that design, marketing, management and a business plan is just fluff thatā€™s superfluous to the existing technology as long as it works. However, every single post I read by investors discusses how far that is from the truth, and Elizabeth lived by that truth. The right answer is obviously that thereā€™s a balance, but Holmes took it to the extreme and forgot that technological innovation is the root of a company thatā€™s promising to change the world.

Herā€™s and Sunnyā€™s naivety, lies, deception, and secrecy led to horrible company culture where everyone felt segregated and scared. Employees were not content with their technological achievement and turnover was high. Family friend relationships (The Fuisz family) were torn apart. An early employee that dedicated his life to the company committed suicide. The CEO of Safeway lost his job because of his belief in her. Investors, such as Rupert Murdock, lost hundreds of millions of dollars. Some patients were at risk of making the wrong decisions for their health. Itā€™s ridiculous how far this lie was takenā€¦