The Devil's Playbook

- Blurb -

Big Tobacco meets Silicon Valley in this "deeply reported and illuminating" (The New York Times Book Review)corporate expose of what happened when two of the most notorious industries collided-and the vaping epidemic was born. "The best business book I' ve read since Bad Blood. "-Jonathan Eig, New York Times bestselling author of Ali- A LifeHoward Willard lusted after Juul. As the CEO of tobacco giant Philip Morris' s parent company and a veteran of the industry' s long fight to avoid being regulated out of existence, he grew obsessed with a prize he believed could save his company-the e-cigarette, a product with all the addictive upside of the original without the same apparent health risks and bad press. Meanwhile, in Silicon Valley, Adam Bowen and James Monsees began working on a device that was meant to save lives and destroy Big Tobacco, but they ended up baking the industry' s DNA into their invention' s science and marketing. Ultimately, Juul' s e-cigarette was so effective and so market-dominating that it put the company on a collision course with Philip Morris and sparked one of the most explosive public health crises in recent memory. In a deeply reported account, award-winning journalist Lauren Etter tells a riveting story of greed and deception in one of the biggest botched deals in business history. Etter shows how Philip Morris' s struggle to innovate left Willard desperate to acquire Juul, even as his own team sounded alarms about the startup' s reliance on underage customers. And she shows how Juul' s executives negotiated a lavish deal that let them pocket the lion' s share of Philip Morris' s $12. 8 billion investment while government regulators and furious parents mounted a campaign to hold the company' s feet to the fire. TheDevil' sPlaybook is the inside story of how Juul' s embodiment of Silicon Valley' s "move fast and break things" ethos wrought havoc on American health, and how a beleaguered tobacco company was seduced by the promise of a new generation of addicted customers. With both companies' eyes on the financial prize, neither anticipated the sudden outbreak of vaping-linked deaths that would terrorize a nation, crater Juul' s value, end Willard' s career, and show the costs in human life of the rush to riches-while Juul' s founders, board members, and employees walked away with a windfall.