Bad Blood book discussion

[mrspez07]

MAY INCLUDE SPOILERS (but so will a basic internet search about the company ;-)

I just finished listening yesterday. Anyone who has read this book about Theranos is welcome to chime in, aurora had mentioned discussing it in last week’s weekly book roundup.

[aurora]

Thanks, mrspez07!

So take all of this with the knowledge that I read the book months ago.

Obviously Elizabeth Holmes and her fellow leaders of Theranos were corrupt in their reporting on the company and sounds like pretty terrible managers from a personnel side, as well. I found the first 3/4 of the book to be pretty solid and consistent with the occasional news I had read.

Towards the end, though, when he started reporting on the impact of her gender, I felt like he devolved into a bunch of sexist tropes while trying to claim he wasn't sexist. It really soured me on the book, and I wish I could remember more specific examples.

I want to be very clear that I'm not saying any of this excuses Holmes, but rather that it also spoiled the book for me. I think both were wrong.

Anyone else feel similarly?

[mrspez07]

aurora
I just read it, and after you mentioned you wanted to discuss it, I amped up my attention to try and catch anything I thought was off.
I don’t think there was too much sexist stuff, IMO but it was also hard to get around. She is an anomaly in the startup world, so over-analyzing her kind of comes with the territory.
There was some talk of her photo shoots and whether to make her “soft” or “hard” and what the image would be. I couldn’t tell how much if that was coming from direct sources or from the author’s interpretations (I listened on audio).

One thing that surprised me, maybe I just wasn’t expecting it was the author inserting himself into the story. It was a bit jarring initially but then made sense because he was part of the unraveling of things and it helped explain the sourcing, etc. At times though, he came across a bit savior-ish

[wesleycrusher]

I really enjoyed this when I read it. I work in health care, my husband works for a (used-to-be) start-up.

I don't remember anything specifically sexist...I know there was discussion of her being a woman and did it help in getting so many high-profile, high income investors.

One takeaway- which is very evident in society today- is that people just can't stand to be wrong.

[mrspez07]

I kept wondering why/how she convinced so many people to invest. That was the one unanswered question for me. What did she “have” that made her such a good salesperson and made people not question her?
Walgreens and Safeway were so concerned about “missing out”, but all this other investors? WTH?!

[tacokick]

Aug 28, 2020 19:06:58 GMT -5 mrspez07 said:

I kept wondering why/how she convinced so many people to invest. That was the one unanswered question for me. What did she “have” that made her such a good salesperson and made people not question her?
Walgreens and Safeway were so concerned about “missing out”, but all this other investors? WTH?!

Blonde hair? Breasts? I really think that was it. A pretty woman in a male dominated arena who could talk a good game.

A lot of the money came from wealthy and smart but not necessarily super tech or medical savvy people if I recall correctly so that contributed to it too. Everyone wants to get on the ground floor of something and make tons of money. If it didn’t have the health angle we’d probably never hear of it. There are so many failed start ups out there.