Don't Be Evil
How Big Tech Betrayed Its Founding Principles - and All of Us
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Narrated by:
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Rachel Fulginiti
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By:
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Rana Foroohar
About this listen
A penetrating indictment of how today’s largest tech companies are hijacking our data, our livelihoods, our social fabric, and our minds - from an acclaimed Financial Times columnist and CNN analyst.
Winner of the Porchlight Business Book Award
Named one of the Best Books of the Year by Foreign Affairs and Evening Standard
"Don’t be evil" was enshrined as Google’s original corporate mantra back in its early days, when the company’s cheerful logo still conveyed the utopian vision for a future in which technology would inevitably make the world better, safer, and more prosperous.
Unfortunately, it’s been quite a while since Google, or the majority of the Big Tech companies, lived up to this founding philosophy. Today, the utopia they sought to create is looking more dystopian than ever: from digital surveillance and the loss of privacy to the spreading of misinformation and hate speech to predatory algorithms targeting the weak and vulnerable to products that have been engineered to manipulate our desires.
How did we get here? How did these once-scrappy and idealistic enterprises become rapacious monopolies with the power to corrupt our elections, co-opt all our data, and control the largest single chunk of corporate wealth - while evading all semblance of regulation and taxes? In Don’t Be Evil, Financial Times global business columnist Rana Foroohar tells the story of how Big Tech lost its soul - and ate our lunch.
Through her skilled reporting and unparalleled access - won through nearly 30 years covering business and technology - she shows the true extent to which behemoths like Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon are monetizing both our data and our attention, without us seeing a penny of those exorbitant profits.
Finally, Foroohar lays out a plan for how we can resist, by creating a framework that fosters innovation while also protecting us from the dark side of digital technology.
Praise for Don’t Be Evil:
"At first sight, Don’t Be Evil looks like it's doing for Google what muckraking journalist Ida Tarbell did for Standard Oil over a century ago. But this whip-smart, highly readable book's scope turns out to be much broader. Worried about the monopolistic tendencies of big tech? The addictive apps on your iPhone? The role Facebook played in Donald Trump’s election? Foroohar will leave you even more worried, but a lot better informed." (Niall Ferguson, Milbank family senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford, and author of The Square and the Tower)
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Critic reviews
“This book goes beyond the economic problems of market distortion and monopoly power and examines the broader implications for society of the untrammeled and under-regulated Silicon Valley companies. Foroohar demonstrates that while the creed ‘don’t be evil’ may have initially inspired the Silicon Valley giants, its principle has long been left behind.” (Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in economics)
“If journalism is the first rough draft of history, then we are most fortunate to have Rana Foroohar’s laser vision and trenchant business analysis turned on the tech giants and the gluttonous anti-democratic surveillance capitalism that is their most far-reaching innovation. Foroohar’s examination of Big Tech’s audacity, plunder, and self-dealing economics is a crucial contribution to the growing debate on how to constrain the dark power of the tech corporations, binding them to the real needs of people and society.” (Shoshana Zuboff, author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism and Professor Emerita at Harvard Business School)
“Rana Foroohar’s new book explains how Big Tech firms have moved permanently beyond the reach of tax laws by leveraging the same opaque financial wizardry and scale that big banks did before the financial crisis, while also exploiting information asymmetries that demote us from citizens to mere consumers. Her urgent message: ‘Yes, we really are living in the Matrix,’ and it’s time to rise up and resist our algorithmic overlords. This book shows us how.” (Cathy O’Neil, The New York Times best-selling author of Weapons of Math Destruction and CEO of ORCAA)
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Story
Ten years ago, the United States stood at the forefront of the Internet revolution. With some of the fastest speeds and lowest prices in the world for high-speed Internet access, the nation was poised to be the global leader in the new knowledge-based economy. Today that global competitive advantage has all but vanished because of a series of government decisions and resulting monopolies that have allowed dozens of countries, including Japan and South Korea, to pass us in both speed and price of broadband.
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Great info, dry delivery
- By Chase Vaughan on 02-12-16
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The Impulse Society
- America in the Age of Instant Gratification
- By: Paul Roberts
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Paul Robert digs down to the economic roots of the problem, shows how it has metastisized to affect every facet of our lives and our ability to navigate the future. In clear, cogent prose that mixes illuminating analysis and vibrant reporting, Roberts not only tells the fascinating story of how the impulse society came to be, but shows how, perhaps, a healthier society may still be possible.
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A Must-Listen for Millenials
- By Doug - Audible on 03-31-15
By: Paul Roberts
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Supercapitalism
- The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life
- By: Robert B. Reich
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Since the 1970s, and notwithstanding three recessions, the U.S. economy has soared. American capitalism has been a triumph, and it has spread throughout the world. At the same time, argues the former U.S. secretary of labor, Robert B. Reich, the effectiveness of democracy in America has declined. It has grown less responsive to the citizenry, and people are feeling more and more helpless as a result.
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Robert Reich for V.P. (of the U.S.)
- By Horace on 11-07-07
By: Robert B. Reich
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The End of Power
- From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be
- By: Moises Naim
- Narrated by: Matt Kugler
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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In The End of Power, award-winning columnist and former Foreign Policy editor Moisés Naím illuminates the struggle between once-dominant megaplayers and the new micropowers challenging them in every field of human endeavor. Drawing on provocative, original research and a lifetime of experience in global affairs, Naím explains how the end of power is reconfiguring our world.
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Another Power book
- By Anonymous User on 04-12-24
By: Moises Naim
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Little Rice
- Smartphones, Xiaomi, and the Chinese Dream
- By: Clay Shirky
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Since the 1990s China has been climbing up the ladder of quality, from doing knockoffs to designing its own high-end goods. Xiaomi - its name literally means "little rice" - is landing squarely in this shift in China's economy. But the remarkable rise of Xiaomi from startup to colossus is more than a business story because mobile phones are special. The common desiderata of the global population, mobile phones offer the kind of freedom and connectedness that autocratic countries are terrified of.
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Informative and up to date.
- By Kevin on 01-10-16
By: Clay Shirky
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Machine, Platform, Crowd
- Harnessing Our Digital Future
- By: Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Second Machine Age, Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson predicted some of the far-reaching effects of digital technologies on our lives and businesses. Now they’ve written a guide to help listeners make the most of our collective future. Machine | Platform | Crowd outlines the opportunities and challenges inherent in the science fiction technologies that have come to life in recent years, like self-driving cars and 3D printers, online platforms for renting outfits and scheduling workouts, or crowd-sourced medical research and financial instruments.
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Both How AND Why for Techies
- By Dan Collins on 08-11-17
By: Erik Brynjolfsson, and others
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The Business of Platforms
- Strategy in the Age of Digital Competition, Innovation, and Power
- By: Michael A. Cusumano, Annabelle Gawer, David B. Yoffie
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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A trio of experts on high-tech business strategy and innovation reveal the principles that have made platform businesses the most valuable firms in the world and the first trillion-dollar companies.
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doesnt teach you much
- By Kenneth on 06-07-20
By: Michael A. Cusumano, and others
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The Code
- Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America
- By: Margaret O'Mara
- Narrated by: Nan McNamara
- Length: 19 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Long before Margaret O'Mara became one of our most consequential historians of the American-led digital revolution, she worked in the White House of Bill Clinton and Al Gore in the earliest days of the commercial Internet. There, she saw firsthand how deeply intertwined Silicon Valley was with the federal government - and always had been - and how shallow the common understanding of the secrets of the Valley's success actually was.
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Mostly good, but also irrating
- By Rodney on 12-20-20
By: Margaret O'Mara
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That Used to Be Us
- How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back
- By: Thomas L. Friedman, Michael Mandelbaum
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 16 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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America has a huge problem. It faces four major challenges, on which its future depends, and it is failing to meet them. In That Used to Be Us, Thomas L. Friedman, one of our most influential columnists, and Michael Mandelbaum, one of our leading foreign policy thinkers, analyze those challenges - globalization, the revolution in information technology, the nation's chronic deficits, and its pattern of energy consumption - and spell out what we need to do now to rediscover America and rise to this moment.
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We have met the enemy and it is us.... Pogo
- By Soudant on 09-16-11
By: Thomas L. Friedman, and others
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AI Superpowers
- China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order
- By: Kai-Fu Lee
- Narrated by: Mikael Naramore
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In AI Superpowers, Kai-fu Lee argues powerfully that because of these unprecedented developments in AI, dramatic changes will be happening much sooner than many of us expected. Indeed, as the US-Sino AI competition begins to heat up, Lee urges the US and China to both accept and to embrace the great responsibilities that come with significant technological power.
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Compelled to listen at 2x speed
- By LEE on 09-26-18
By: Kai-Fu Lee
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The Digital Silk Road
- China's Quest to Wire the World and Win the Future
- By: Jonathan E. Hillman
- Narrated by: James Fouhey
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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From the ocean floor to outer space, China’s Digital Silk Road aims to wire the world and rewrite the global order. Taking listeners on a journey inside China’s surveillance state, rural America, and Africa’s megacities, Jonathan Hillman reveals what China’s expanding digital footprint looks like on the ground and explores the economic and strategic consequences of a future in which all routers lead to Beijing.
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THE RACE TO WIRE THE WORLD
- By jaga on 01-23-22
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The Zero Marginal Cost Society
- The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism
- By: Jeremy Rifkin
- Narrated by: David Cochran Heath
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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In this provocative new book, Rifkin argues that the coming together of the Communication Internet with the fledgling Energy Internet and Logistics Internet in a seamless twenty-first-century intelligent infrastructure—the Internet of Things—is boosting productivity to the point where the marginal cost of producing many goods and services is nearly zero, making them essentially free.
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Not a convincing argument-just stories & ideology
- By Pierre Parent on 07-26-17
By: Jeremy Rifkin
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The Great Reversal
- How America Gave Up on Free Markets
- By: Thomas Philippon
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Why are cellphone plans so much more expensive in the United States than in Europe? It seems a simple question. But the search for an answer took Thomas Philippon on an unexpected journey through some of the most complex and hotly debated issues in modern economics. Ultimately, he reached a surprising conclusion: American markets, once a model for the world, are giving up on healthy competition.
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Eye-opening, but better as a book - a must-READ
- By Ash on 11-29-19
By: Thomas Philippon
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Plutocrats
- The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else
- By: Chrystia Freeland
- Narrated by: Allyson Ryan
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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There has always been some gap between rich and poor in this country, but in the last few decades what it means to be rich has changed dramatically. Alarmingly, the greatest income gap is not between the 1 percent and the 99 percent, but within the wealthiest 1 percent of our nation-as the merely wealthy are left behind by the rapidly expanding fortunes of the new global super-rich. Forget the 1 percent; Plutocrats proves that it is the wealthiest 0.1 percent who are outpacing the rest of us at break-neck speed.
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Good Storytelling but ... analysis is "eh'
- By Susan on 11-04-12
What listeners say about Don't Be Evil
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Bryan E. Canter
- 09-06-22
Very Good Investigational Journalism
The author demonstrates a significant political bias, however, the journalism is excellent. She raises a large number of issues that must be dealt with relating to public and private data and it’s monopoly control by the mega tech companies. She further proposes strategies to address the issues. This is an important contribution toward a topic that desperately needs to be the center of some heated national debate.
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- cm
- 11-23-22
Lol at all these sensitive trumpy reviews
Yes, Trump is inevitably mentioned in a book pertaining to the current American climate. While he is not praised as a some sort of mythological savior as these reviewers may have hoped, Ms. Faroohar’s mentions of him are brief and to the point. I would guess these reviews have much more to do with the reviewers being uncomfortable outside of their Fox News/Facebook cradle more than anything in the book itself.
If you’re upset at all about the current state of affairs in the world, this is a great place to start. These are huge issues that affect every aspect of our economy, our families, and our quality of life, and that is something you should be concerned about, regardless of where you land on the political spectrum.
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- Christopher Williams
- 09-20-20
Excellent
An excellent look into how big tech has failed us and what is needed to get started on fixing it.
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- Don Sherman Hall
- 01-24-20
Tech Monopolies can be evil
Interesting topic and very thoughtful. It’s a little frightening to think about how much big tech seduces us and tries to control our lives. But books like this one can help us rally against these modern day monopolies.
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- Brad
- 11-30-19
Outstanding
Very important and timely. Must read for anyone interested in Big Tech and the issues we face from their growing control of our economy and society.
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- Bryan
- 11-29-19
A Bit Disappointed
I read Rana Foroohar previous book, "Makers and Takers" (which was a great book) so my expectations for this book were a bit high. Overall, the book is well researched and written and it's pretty good, but it's not great. She tries to make sense of how the Big Tech companies are screwing over the public. I totally agree. The solution on how to deal with that is difficult to answer. Right now the Internet is like the "wild west" and no one really knows how to tame it. Rana Foroohar posits some ideas along the lines of the EU's regulations. I'm not so sure. I believe this requires a lot more thought. Nevertheless, I believe the book is a good start to having a national debate on how to reign in Big Tech. In addition, I was a bit disappointed with Rana's political bias (she's anti-Trump) inserted into the text. It would have been a much better book if she'd stayed politically neutral and just stuck to the facts and make a compelling argument (just like she did in Makers and Takers). So this book ends with a lot of unanswered questions.
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- Dave
- 10-14-20
Informative or apocalyptic
This book was extremely enlightening, but I almost regret being so precisely enlightened. It was a near-apocalyptic view of a dystopian consumer future. It confirmed some of my worst suspicions but also gave me nightmares. The only ray of sunshine was the flashlight beam that the author cast into the darkness occasionally, to show the possible way out of a dark destiny. And the exit depends on a lot of things that are not likely to happen. So, as I said, I almost regret being so well informed. Let’s hope the way out of that future is made easier by this awareness being implanted into our lawmakers and voters... before the exits close!
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- CB
- 12-08-19
Good companion to Surveillance Capitalism
Good companion to Surveillance Capitalism ... a few years on. Fills in some important gaps.
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- cesar
- 11-17-24
if you value your privacy this is for you
this book is a mine of good information about big tech and how they violate our privacy and get to play with us based on what they learn from us. I don't think it's a partisan book like many want to think, it makes mention of all political groups at play. please read and recommend to others.
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- Lynn Edward Scherer
- 12-01-19
A welcome break from the nonstop breaking news.
The book defines our current technology problems in away that is easy to understand.
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1 person found this helpful