Bad Blood - Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

Bad Blood chronicles the tale of startup company Theranos. CEO Elizabeth Holmes dropped out of Stanford to start the company. Her premise was to produce a small machine that could produce all kinds of blood tests from a single drop of blood from a finger prick.

Normally you need to take a lot of blood from the body, and have a lab perform tons of tests requested by doctors. Holmes created a machine that in theory could analyze one variety of blood tests. But the machine was faulty. The real crime was putting the testing in production with real patients.

Plenty of employees determined that there was outright fraud going on. All were either fired or quit. They were muzzled by top lawyers for the company. Luckily a Wall Street Journal reported was tipped off and published a series of inditements against the company in his newspaper. He is the author of this book.

The Man Who Quit Money

Danielo Suelo is a guy who refuses to work for money. He does not like the monetary system at all. This does not mean that he never works. He just refuses to be paid for it. This is his way of life.

Daniel has minimal possessions. You might find him living in a cave in the wilderness. But it won't usually be that far away from a town. He likes to get leftover food that stores or restaurants want to throw away. Daniel is also sometime content to live off the land.

Suelo was brought up as a Fundamentalist Christian. He went off when older to find the secrets of God. I think he turned into an athiest. But that was not until surveying assorted religions around the world, and trying some of them out in different countries.

I do give Suelo credit that he is living the life he professes. He does live off the kindness of others, and the generousity of businesses that hand out leftovers. He does face problems when having to pay for things like dentistry or health care.

There were many highlights in this book about Suelo's life. One was when he and a new friend headed North and crossed a frozen lake to become stranded on a private island. Suelo had to swim back in icy waters, and beg the hotel owner who also owned the land for help.

Uncommon Type

This book is the first from Tom Hanks. Compared to the drivel I previously read, this book was top notch. It is a collection of short stories. They each tie in the use of a typewriter into the story. However that is not the main point of any of the stories.

There are recurring characters in some of the stories. There is a guy and his three friends. Two friends are guys who start off working at Home Depot: MDash and Steve Wong. MDash recently became a citizen of the USA. Steve Wong is a bowling prodigy who has multiple confirmed perfect games in a row. The third friend is Anna, who the main guy dates for a while. Anna is too high strung, high maintenance, and high velocity. He is not he man for her. They all remain friends to the end though.

Small Fry

This book is by Lisa Brennan-Jobs. She is the first child of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. She was originally raised by her single mother Chris. Steve Jobs denied that she was his daughter. Chris and Lisa were in poverty. They moved from place to place, sleeping on peoples' couches. They were on welfare in the early years.

Eventually the state sued Steve Jobs to collect the money they were paying. The state also sued Steve Jobs to provide child support. Lisa's mother and father were never married. Lisa's mom did seem to suffer from a lot of mental problems. Eventually, Lisa lived half time with her mom, and the other half Steve Jobs and her stepmother.

Steve Jobs got rich when Apple Computer were public. Rich as in worth hundreds of millions, back in a time when 1 million dollars was a lot of money. He also profited off of Pixar, which he also owned. He owned multiple houses that cost a lot of money. This book shows that he withheld money from Lisa and her mom. It seems like that was done to exert power over them.

This book takes you from Lisa's youngest years up until the death of Steve Jobs. It was quite a read. Lot of disturbing info about the abuse at the hands of Steve Jobs. I did learn a lot about Lisa, who is often overlooked when the story of her father is told.

Still Standing

This book is by Maryland governor Larry Hogan. He starts by recounting how he found out he had aggressive late stage cancer. Then we go back to start where he grew up in Maryland. He went to a local Catholic high school. Then his parents got divorced. He moved to Florida with his mom. Eventually he returned to Maryland.

Larry goes on to recount how he met his wife, who was a Korean single mom with three daughters. He also chronicles how he, a Republican, won the governor race in a state that is around 80% democrats. A couple months after he was elected, big city Baltimore in Maryland had bad riots. He had to step in when the mayor of Baltimore was slacking.

The book goes on to recount Larry's win of a second term as governor. There are times when he seems pitted against Donald Trump as Trump runs and wins the presidential election. And he has to deal with the onset of COVID-19. He uses his wife's connections to purchase 500k of COVID testing kits from Korea.

The Wishbones

This is the second book I bought by Tom Perrotta. The title is the name of a wedding band called the Wishbones. However the book is about Dave, who is a guitar played in said band. He has been dating his girlfriend Julie for 15 years. He describes that time as dating "on and off". Dave is a courier in the New York City. He describes it as a dead end job.

Dave's love is music. The wedding band is a way to get paid a bit to do what he likes. He really wants to be on tour with a better band. But so far, such an opportunity has eluded him. Dave had a tragedy when his girlfriend's parents caught him and Julie naked at their house. He is trying to get back into better standing with those parents.

At one wedding, Dave meets Gretchen. Apparently they had met before. But he does not recall much about her. Gretchen is unlike Dave's girlfriend. She is tall and slender. She lives in New York City. Dave eventually thinks he loves Gretchen. However Gretchen cannot stay with a guy who is about to be married to his long time girlfriend.

The Fugitive Game

Kevin Mitnick is a hacker. He is able to make long distance calls for free. He can listen in on other people's phone conversations. He can read your email. Originally he was caught and sentenced when young. Then before his probation is up, he goes back to hacking.

Mitnick goes on the run. A New York Times reporter and another famous hacker track Mitnick down. The FBI eventually captures Mitnick and arrests him. There is a lot of suspicious activities by the reporter and other hacker. They end up getting deals for a book on Mitnick, movie rights, and even a video game.

The FBI is also a bit suspicious with this case. They bust into Mitnick's apartment before they actually get the search warrant. They also have the civilians along when they are tracking Mitnick. Then there are also shenanigans when Mitnick is tried for his alleged crimes.

The author of this book is somewhat sympathetic to Mitnick. He also has a lot of conversations with the hacker that are recounted in this book. I plan to read another book about Mitnick, from the reporter and other hacker's points of view.