With the completion of Run I of the CERN Large Hadron Collider, particle physics has entered a new era. The production of unprecedented numbers of heavy-flavored hadrons in high-energy proton-proton collisions allows detailed studies of flavor-changing processes. The increasingly precise measurements allow the Standard Model to be tested with a new level of accuracy. Rare b hadron decays provide some of the most promising approaches for such tests because there are several observables that can be cleanly interpreted from a theoretical viewpoint. In this article, we review the status and prospects in this field, with a focus on precision measurements and null tests.