John Carreyrou’s book on Theranos, founded by Elizabeth Holmes. The title is Bad Blood. Recommended by Patrick Collision.
These days, I find myself pondering issues of morality and ethics a lot. We are all flawed. How do some of us manage to avoid going downhill and becoming really bad?
This book raises many questions. How could so many people have been fooled? It seems like a lot of the people she fooled were male. We’re they vulnerable because she was a woman?
People were fooled, I am guessing, by looking at companies in the digital world and their real and extreme returns and thinking that same success would follow tech pioneers into the physical world(Tesla may also be an example of this). I haven’t read the book so my opinion may be way off . Also extreme inequality means that there is money out there sloshing around looking for move the needle returns. Is Betsy DeVos excited by beating the market by a few points? Has this massive loss really affected the Waltons?
The college stereotype of a classy babe professor, almost a great chemist or biochemist. Mine taught biochem, classy dresser, well formed, if you know what I mean. Every campus has one, I think. They really are good at chem, I agree; and make great cooks because of it.
The part about one whistleblower whose parents had to pay 400.000 dollar in legal costs and who also became estranged from his grandfather (who remained a believer) is tragic. It has the look-and-feel of a cult.
” It seems like a lot of the people she fooled were male. We’re they vulnerable because she was a woman?”
Most of Bernie Madoff’s victims seem to be men. They tend to control the money. And if you are trying to put together a board of with impressive military/political background but don’t actually know enough to question the technology those are also mostly male.
I read Bad Blood in just a couple days and then immediately had to move on to something about more ethical, trustworthy people: Janet Reitman’s Inside Scientology.
True story. In any case, while I’m sure that powerful men can be especially vulnerable to manipulation by smart young women, there are a couple other important ideas. The first is that narcissists use anger to cow and intimidate; Elizabeth Holmes, L. Ron Hubbard and David Miscavige all use that trick. I worked for two years at a multinational hotel companies’ complaints hotline and saw many of the less famous try this, and even having the training, natural talent and alcoholic parent to help me be more resistant to this than most individuals, it still worked plenty.
A second thread is the silicon valley culture of “promise x now, figure out how to do it later,” doesn’t really work in other industries. If you combine that with criminal narcissism, you get Theranos; if you just add regular narcissism, you just get Tesla.