Paired Readings

Thoughts on books that would be interesting to read together and use as the basis for a discussion group or class.  

First up:

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

Cardiac Arrest: Five Heart Stopping Years as a CEO on the Feds' Hit-List by Howard Root

One of these books illustrates numerous failures of our systems, including that of the federal government and the FDA in preventing fraud.

The other book illustrates numerous failures of our systems, including that the federal government and the FDA in pursuing vendettas against innocent individuals.

All of which leads to a discussion of how better to prevent fraud while discouraging abuse of the regulatory and enforcement process.

Bad Blood is the astonishing tale of Theranos and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, and enterprise that collapsed in fraud and failure and with Holmes currently facing a criminal trial.  The book is written like a thriller and its hard to put down - I read the whole thing on a cross-country flight.

With her striking personality and appearance Holmes attracted fervent admirers and supporters who didn't closely inquire into the underlying technology of her company.  She cleverly recruited an extremely prestigious board, but one which had little knowledge of the technology involved; people like Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, James Mattis, former Senator Sam Nunn, former Secretary of Defense William Perry.

Carreyrou also explains that Holmes being a woman helped persuade most in the media not to inquire too closely into the details.  Instead she was promoted as a role model and rock star CEO.

Carreyrou also becomes a subject of his own story.  He began covering Theranos as a Wall Street Journal reporter, became skeptical about the company and Holmes and began writing critical stories.  Theranos and Holmes went to the Journal's publisher, Rupert Murdoch who had invested $100 million in Theranos, asking him to stifle Carreyrou, who later found out that Murdoch refused to do so.

Cardiac Arrest is written by the CEO of a medical device company in Minnesota that was first investigated by the FDA and then by the Justice Department which ended up charging him for violation of Federal laws.  Howard Root resigned as CEO to fight the charges and ended up winning in a jury trial.

The book chronicles Root's increasing disbelief as the matter escalated into a criminal case and goes through in detail every step of the process which is truly mind-boggling in its complexity and in the deviousness of the prosecutors who were clearly abusing their powers. Above all, the discretionary power the government has to destroy someone's life is laid out for all to see.  A powerful tale.

Next:

Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama

My Grandfather's Son by Clarence Thomas

I suspect I am one of the few people to have read all of both of these books and recommend both.

For a moment let's leave aside politics.  I quite enjoyed Dreams From My Father, the story of a biracial young man, who at times harbors a lot of anger, eventually goes to elite colleges and decides to move to Chicago, become fully "black" and work in the community.  It climaxes with his visit to Kenya to connect with the relatives of his deceased father and finds them to be the usual mix of humanity; kind, crazy, difficult, loving, accomplished, lost etc.

My Grandfather's Son is the tale of a boy growing up in the segregated South, in an isolated black community that spoke its own dialect.  His difficult upbringing with his father and of the grandfather who made him the man he became.  Along the way he attends colleges in the Northeast, deals with rage against white people, struggles in his career and develops a drinking problem.

Reading the books and knowing that both Obama and Thomas rose to great public prominence though they became very different in their political views, could generate some fascinating discussions about their respective family backgrounds, personalities, how and where they grew up in trying to determine how they came to follow their respective paths.  There are striking similarities and differences in their lives and personalities.