'Bad Blood, 'John Carreyrou, Alfred A. Knopf, 352 pages, $27.95.
In 2015, Vice President Joe Biden visited the Newark, Calif., laboratory of a hot new startup making medical devices: Theranos.
Biden saw rows of impressive-looking equipment — the company's supposedly game-changing device for testing blood. The lab was a fake. The devices Biden saw had been staged for the visit.
Of course, Biden was not the only one conned. In Theranos' brief, Icarus-like existence as a Silicon Valley darling, marquee investors shelled out $900 million. Founder, Elizabeth Holmes was feted as a biomedical version of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.
The prizewinning Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou tells the story virtually to perfection in "Bad Blood" — first through a chilling, third-person narrative on how Holmes came up with a fantastic idea that made her, for a while, the most successful woman entrepreneur in Silicon Valley.
The heart of the problem: She and her company overpromised, then when they couldn't deliver, lied.
In the second part of the book, the author compellingly relates how he became involved, following a tip from a suspicious reader.
Even with modern journalism's issues, his recounting reads like a West Coast version of "All the President's Men."
The question of how the scheme got so far — more than 800 employees and a paper valuation of $9 billion — will fascinate business school classes for years.
