That pattern also includes considering all the above-referenced elements within the context of the arrival, disillusionment, and departure of a string of employees. The remainder of the narrative’s first section then follows a chapter-by-chapter pattern of tracking the financial growth, the commercial successes, and the scientific struggles of Theranos, the increasingly volatile nature of the work environment, and the increasing fame of Elizabeth Holmes. The narrative then returns to the period around the firing of the chief financial officer, focusing on the hiring of a new chief engineer, the growth of his own suspicions, and his own eventual departure from the company.

Narration then shifts into the past, describing Elizabeth’s family history, which led to both her desire to make a great deal of money and to do so by doing the most good for the most people.

In a prologue, narration describes how the former chief financial officer of Theranos was summarily fired by Elizabeth Holmes after raising concerns about the company’s products and practices. The final quarter of the book is written from the more personal, more subjective, first-person perspective of the author, and narrates events surrounding his writing of a series of articles for the Wall Street Journal about Theranos and Holmes. The first three-quarters of the book is written in journalistic, objective, third-person language, and describes the origins and growth of Theranos, a Silicon Valley startup lead and controlled by young Stanford dropout Elizabeth Holmes.

Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup. The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Carreyrou, John.

Bad blood startup