Summary of Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

Silicon Valley start-ups aren't known for soft-pedaling their products' virtues. This Californian Mecca of braggadocio runs on inflated claims, white lies and an ingrained culture of faking-it-till-you-make-it. Things usually pan out one of two ways for these swaggering upstarts. Either the company makes it big and changes the world forever - think Google, Apple and Amazon - or it falls on its sword after tasting defeat in a cutthroat market. But sometimes things take a more bizarre turn. Enter Elizabeth Holmes, the charismatic, turtleneck-wearing wunderkind whose promise of a medical revolution had investors lining up to fund her brainchild: Theranos. If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Theranos' Edison wasn't an exception. A tiny, ultra-portable, cheap and quick blood-testing device capable of screening for 200 common conditions, it was hailed as a "miracle machine." The only problem? It didn't work. And that's where this extraordinary tale of lies, subterfuge, deception and trickery starts getting really weird.