'Female Steve Jobs' Theranos Head Faked Results In 2006: Book

The demonstration, by all accounts, was a success. But the Theranos employees who had been on the trip didn't seem too excited, noticed Theranos' chief financial officer at the time, Henry Mosley.

That, according to Carreyrou, is because the blood-testing system the team had demonstrated in Switzerland didn't always work. To mask the problem, the team had recorded results that could be displayed during a demo to investors. Mosley wanted to know whether that happened at the Novartis meeting.

Here's how Carreyrou recounts it in the book:

"Mosley couldn't get a straight answer from anyone, but he now suspected some similar sleight of hand. And he was right. One of the two readers Elizabeth took to Switzerland had malfunctioned when they got there. The employees she brought with her had stayed up all night trying to get it to work. To mask the problem during the demo the next morning, Tim Kemp's team in California had beamed over a fake result."

After Mosley learned this, he brought it up to Holmes, who Carreyrou said acknowledged there had been an issue but didn't seem bothered by it. But when he brought up his suspicions during meetings with investors, Holmes' tone changed, Carreyrou said, and he was fired.