The lesson from Theranos

I just finished reading “Bad Blood”, the mind-boggling saga of Theranos, a biotechnology start-up, infamous now for its fallacious claims to have devised a super simple, non-invasive blood test.

The company was founded in 2003 by Elizabeth Holmes when she was just 19. She and her partner managed to raise more than $700 million from investors, and reach a $10 billion peak valuation in 2013.

Both its investors and the media hyped Theranos as being a technological breakthrough, just like a new Apple. That was until October 2015, when John Carreyrou, a Wall Street Journal reporter and author of the book, exposed the scam, causing the company to quickly disintegrate until it closed its doors on 31 August of this year.

The takeaway from that unbelievable story is that Ms. Holmes was a dangerous charismatic leader that knew how to play people, employees, investors and the media, just like Prophet Mohamed, Donald Trump or Joseph Smith (the founder of Mormonism) had done before her.

These people aren't just extremely effective and dangerous, they tend to resurface frequently under different labels and their mere existence should be a warning to all of us to always think critically and never take what these manipulators or their supporters assert at face value.

Now go back to work, do your homework when tempted by an investment opportunity and always stay on your guard!