Brotopia Audiobook By Emily Chang cover art

Brotopia

Breaking Up the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley

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Brotopia

By: Emily Chang
Narrated by: Emily Chang
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Instant National Best Seller

A PBS News Hour-New York Times Book Club Pick!

"Excellent." (San Francisco Chronicle)

"Brotopia is more than a business book. Silicon Valley holds extraordinary power over our present lives as well as whatever utopia (or nightmare) might come next." (New York Times)

Silicon Valley is a modern utopia where anyone can change the world. Unless you're a woman.

For women in tech, Silicon Valley is not a fantasy land of unicorns, virtual reality rainbows, and 3D-printed lollipops, where millions of dollars grow on trees. It's a "Brotopia," where men hold all the cards and make all the rules. Vastly outnumbered, women face toxic workplaces rife with discrimination and sexual harassment, where investors take meetings in hot tubs and network at sex parties.

In this powerful exposé, Bloomberg TV journalist Emily Chang reveals how Silicon Valley got so sexist despite its utopian ideals, why bro culture endures despite decades of companies claiming the moral high ground (Don't Be Evil! Connect the World!)--and how women are finally starting to speak out and fight back.

Drawing on her deep network of Silicon Valley insiders, Chang opens the boardroom doors of male-dominated venture capital firms like Kleiner Perkins, the subject of Ellen Pao's high-profile gender discrimination lawsuit, and Sequoia, where a partner once famously said they "won't lower their standards" just to hire women. Interviews with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, and former Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer--who got their start at Google, where just one in five engineers is a woman--reveal just how hard it is to crack the Silicon Ceiling. And Chang shows how women such as former Uber engineer Susan Fowler, entrepreneur Niniane Wang, and game developer Brianna Wu, have risked their careers and sometimes their lives to pave a way for other women.

Silicon Valley's aggressive, misogynistic, work-at-all costs culture has shut women out of the greatest wealth creation in the history of the world. It's time to break up the boys' club. Emily Chang shows us how to fix this toxic culture--to bring down Brotopia, once and for all.

©2018 Emily Chang (P)2018 Penguin Audio
Gender Studies Labor & Industrial Relations Organizational Behavior Politics & Government Social Sciences Women in Business Workplace & Organizational Behavior Business Silicon Valley Utopian Fiction
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Critic reviews

"[Chang] is clearly engaged with and often incensed by her subject, and the best parts of Brotopia are those moments when she actively resists the 'it's all good' ethos of the Bay Area and cuts down chauvinism with the disdain it deserves." (New York Times)

"Brotopia goes far beyond the salacious to offer an important examination of why the technology industry is so dominated by men - and how women are pushing back." (Financial Times)

"When reading Brotopia, it's easy to envision it as a film…. Women who have triumphed in tech despite the odds…could be the film's heroines, and so would the young girls learning how to code despite it all." (The Verge)

Meticulously Researched • Well-organized Content • Stellar Performance • Enlightening Insights • Compelling Narratives
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Thank you to Emily for writing this important and timely book. I have followed the Silicon Valley news regarding harassment in the past few years, so I was aware of the individual incidents. However, the way that Emily weaves these events into a coherent narrative is helpful and quite enlightening. I am a better person, and a better white male, for having read it.

Important, well-researched, nicely performed!

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Emily Chang has a wonderful track record of journalism and her analysis and empathy shone through in the compilation of the book. It’s always a bonus when the author is the narrator, and given she reports for a living she gave a stellar performance on that front as well. Would highly recommend.

Excellent reporting

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This book should be required reading for all silicon valley leaders. Having lived in the silicon valley since 1993 I am familiar with many of the stories shared with in this book and to get the perspectives from the victims themselves has increase my awareness surrounding professional behavior in the workplace. Emily Chang did a fantastic job! Congratulations to her and her team!

Eye Opening

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the main reason it took me a month to finish was because I would get so frustrated with how accurate it was that I would need a break to accept the reality of our culture and really let myself digest it. to have this information laid out in such a thoughtful way, it is almost comforting for women to have these experiences validated by data and hopefully eye-opening for men to understand why women are so frustrated. I am not in the industry, but I really appreciated this book and the author on so many levels.

it might take you a while

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Emily has created a fantastic book that is incredibly eye opening to the world of broculture, especially within the tech community and silicon Valley. I highly recommend you read this book.

A brilliant and eye opening book

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Emily Chang's exploration into the tech industry was insightful and necessary. It's a must read for every future unicorn founder and computer science major. It's time we start to walk the walk when it comes to inclusivity and diversity in the industry. Women should not have to toughen up or play the game to have a fulfilling career in technology. This is the first book I have ever read that didn't leave me feeling like I'm crazy and I don't belong. Thank you Emily Chang.

Unfortunately, this book is needed

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Emily Chang hits the ball out of the park with Brotopia! Working in Silicon Valley and hearing the history and in that history the struggle for women entrepreneurs has caught me off guard. I did not know it could be that lopsided. Emily narrates the story beautifully and eloquently. I love the case she makes for a more inclusive tech industry! She gives tremendous insights, facts, and accounts from many people who have experienced this "Brotopia." Hearing the audiobook on my way to work brightened my mornings and educated me. I highly recommend everyone add this to their wish list.

Amazing and Inspiring!

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I expected more scandalous details, but was overall impressed with the points made. All men should read this book just to help bring to light what it is like to be a working woman.

I would have preferred less of an I hate Trump narrative because it is exhausting, but I’m not the author and political bias is her right.

Excellent book for all individuals in the workplace. Especially male dominated industries. Please read/listen.

Not what I expected, but eye opening.

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What did you love best about Brotopia?

Just finished "Brotopia", Emily Chang's much-anticipated study of the ingrown biases against women (and minorities) in Silicon Valley.

Working in tech (albeit in Seattle and on the sales end of the business) and raising two girls, I felt both pride for Chang's efforts and shame for the indifference with which I unkowingly embody the industry's biases against women.
Her tact was calculated and brilliant. While all of the write-ups on the book focus on the salacious details (and there are countless that make you ill), Chang begins with and continues to return to the fundamentals of a system that is inherently biased. Simple things like boys being targeted by toy companies selling entry-level computers goes so easily unnoticed, but if you hand a 3-year-old boy a simple computer and a 3-year-old girl a doll, who is more-likely to leave Stanford with a computer science degree 20 years later?

This is as important a book as has been written on the tech industry in years. You may love it. You may hate every word of it. But as tech becomes less about the technology and more about the user-experience, we cannot ignore 51% of the population.

The biases in the industry are no longer a problem for women, but a problem for us all.

An industry-changing effort.

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It started off slow and negative, however it really became interesting later in and ended off really well with actionable ways to improve the status quo

Must read for diversity

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