
The Inside Story
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Narrated by:
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Will Damron
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By:
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Steven Levy
About this listen
One of the Best Technology Books of 2020 - Financial Times
"Levy’s all-access Facebook reflects the reputational swan dive of its subject.... The result is evenhanded and devastating." (San Francisco Chronicle)
"[Levy’s] evenhanded conclusions are still damning." (Reason)
"[He] doesn’t shy from asking the tough questions." (The Washington Post)
"Reminds you the HBO show Silicon Valley did not have to reach far for its satire." (NPR.org)
The definitive history, packed with untold stories, of one of America’s most controversial and powerful companies: Facebook
As a college sophomore, Mark Zuckerberg created a simple website to serve as a campus social network.
Today, Facebook is nearly unrecognizable from its first, modest iteration. In light of recent controversies surrounding election-influencing "fake news" accounts, the handling of its users’ personal data, and growing discontent with the actions of its founder and CEO - who has enormous power over what the world sees and says - never has a company been more central to the national conversation.
Millions of words have been written about Facebook, but no one has told the complete story, documenting its ascendancy and missteps. There is no denying the power and omnipresence of Facebook in American daily life, or the imperative of this book to document the unchecked power and shocking techniques of the company, from growing at all costs to outmaneuvering its biggest rivals to acquire WhatsApp and Instagram, to developing a platform so addictive even some of its own are now beginning to realize its dangers.
Based on hundreds of interviews from inside and outside Facebook, Levy’s sweeping narrative of incredible entrepreneurial success and failure digs deep into the whole story of the company that has changed the world and reaped the consequences.
©2020 Steven Levy (P)2020 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Jim Simons is the greatest money maker in modern financial history. No other investor - Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Ray Dalio, Steve Cohen, or George Soros - can touch his record. Since 1988, Renaissance's signature Medallion fund has generated average annual returns of 66 percent. The firm has earned profits of more than $100 billion; Simons is worth 23 billion dollars.
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Critic reviews
"Steven Levy is the founding guru of technology journalism. Few other writers can harness both access to top figures and critical insight informed by decades of reporting on Silicon Valley. His Facebook book will be a blockbuster, a penetrating account of the momentous consequences of a reckless young company with the power to change the world." (Brad Stone, author of The Everything Store and The Upstarts)
"The social-media behemoth Facebook comes across as an idealistic but also shady, exploitative, and increasingly beleaguered entity in this clear-eyed history.... Levy had extensive access to Facebook employees and paints a revealing and highly critical portrait of the company as it wrangled with charges that it violated users’ privacy by sharing their data with advertisers and political operatives, and served as a vector for manipulative fake news, pro-Trump Russian propaganda, and hate speech." (Publishers Weekly)
"Respected tech writer Levy (In the Plex, 2011) presents the definitive story of Facebook.... Given unfettered access to Zuckerberg and the company during the last three years, Levy is able to illustrate how the company developed under the influence of Zuckerberg’s acknowledged hypercompetitiveness.... This absorbing book will inspire important conversations about big tech and privacy in the twenty-first century." (Booklist)
"The value of this book lies in its putting together all the pieces of Facebook's privacy troubles, algorithms, and the Cambridge Analytica affair." (Library Journal)
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Story
Fascinated from an early age by the natural world in general and ants in particular, Edward Osborne Wilson's field work on them and on all social insects has vastly expanded our knowledge of their many species and fascinating ways of being. This work led to his 1975 book Sociobiology, which created an intellectual firestorm from his contention that all animal behavior, including that of humans, is governed by the laws of evolution and genetics. Subsequently, Wilson has become a leading voice on the crucial importance to all life of biodiversity.
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A wonderful Biography, I feel like I know him.
- By Nebbie on 12-18-21
By: Richard Rhodes
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Insanely Great
- The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer that Changed Everything
- By: Steven Levy
- Narrated by: Steven Levy
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The creation of the Mac, in 1984, catapulted America into the digital millennium, captured a fanatic cult audience, and transformed the computer industry into an unprecedented mix of technology, economics, and show business. Veteran technology writer and Newsweek senior editor Steven Levy zooms in on the great machine and the fortunes of the unique company responsible for its evolution. Loaded with anecdote and insight, and peppered with sharp commentary, Insanely Great is the definitive book on the most important computer ever made. It is a must-have for anyone curious about how we got to the interactive age.
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Mac Aficionado (and a request to Audible)
- By Tim on 10-30-12
By: Steven Levy
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Ruse
- Lying the American Dream from Hollywood to Wall Street
- By: Robert Kerbeck
- Narrated by: Robert Kerbeck
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In the world of high finance, multibillion-dollar Wall Street banks greedily guard their secrets. Enter Robert Kerbeck, a working actor who made his real money lying on the phone, charming people into revealing their employers’ most valuable information. In this exhilarating memoir that will appeal to fans of The Wolf of Wall Street and Catch Me If You Can, unsuspecting receptionists, assistants, and bigshot executives all fall victim to “the Ruse.”
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Great story terrible voice
- By Tmiddleton on 06-08-23
By: Robert Kerbeck
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Unvarnished
- A Gimlet-Eyed Look at Life Behind the Bar
- By: Eric Alperin, Deborah Stoll
- Narrated by: Eric Alperin
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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When it opened a decade ago, the acclaimed Los Angeles speakeasy The Varnish - owned, designed, and managed by award-winning cocktail aficionado Eric Alperin - quickly became the stylish standard bearer for modern bars. Unvarnished is a candid, voice-driven, no-holds-barred look at the workings of a bar, and the foundation of The Varnish’s success: attention to hospitality and an abiding belief in the nobility of service.
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One of the most accurate accounts of being behind a bar
- By Brian T on 07-14-23
By: Eric Alperin, and others
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The Oxford Inklings
- Lewis, Tolkien and Their Circle
- By: Colin Duriez
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The Oxford Inklings tells the story of the friendships, mutual influence, and common purpose of the Inklings - the literary circle which congregated around C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Meeting in pubs or Lewis' college rooms, they included an influential array of literary figures. They were, claimed poet and novelist John Wain, bent on 'the task of redirecting the whole current of contemporary art and life'. Tolkien and Lewis expert Colin Duriez unpacks the Inklings' origins, relationships, and the nature of their collaboration.
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Great insights into the Inklings
- By Michael W Plunket on 08-12-24
By: Colin Duriez
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The Accidental Billionaires
- The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal
- By: Ben Mezrich
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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The high-energy tale of how two socially awkward Ivy Leaguers, trying to increase their chances with the opposite sex, ended up creating Facebook. Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg were Harvard undergraduates and best friends - outsiders at a school filled with polished prep-school grads and long-time legacies. They shared both academic brilliance in math and a geeky awkwardness with women. The Accidental Billionaires is a compulsively listenable story of innocence lost - and of the unusual creation of a company that has revolutionized the way people relate to one another.
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Ears still bleeding
- By Maria on 01-28-10
By: Ben Mezrich
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Salt
- A World History
- By: Mark Kurlansky
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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The author of Cod and The Basque History of the World takes an extraordinary look at an ordinary substance — salt, the only rock humans eat — and how it has shaped civilization from the very beginning. Mark Kurlansky has produced a kaleidoscope of history, a multi-layered masterpiece that blends economic, scientific, political, religious, and culinary records into a rich and memorable tale.
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More than SALT
- By Karen on 03-12-03
By: Mark Kurlansky
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Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
- 25th Anniversary Edition
- By: Steven Levy
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 20 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Steven Levy's classic book traces the exploits of the computer revolution's original hackers - those brilliant and eccentric nerds from the late 1950s through the early '80s who took risks, bent the rules, and pushed the world in a radical new direction. With updated material from noteworthy hackers such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Stallman, and Steve Wozniak, Hackers is a fascinating story that begins in early computer research labs and leads to the first home computers.
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Remember Why You Got Into Computing
- By Dan Collins on 07-01-16
By: Steven Levy
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Victoria: The Queen
- An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire
- By: Julia Baird
- Narrated by: Lucy Rayner
- Length: 21 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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When Victoria was born, in 1819, the world was a very different place. Revolution would threaten many of Europe’s monarchies in the coming decades. In Britain, a generation of royals had indulged their whims at the public’s expense, and republican sentiment was growing. The Industrial Revolution was transforming the landscape, and the British Empire was commanding ever larger tracts of the globe. In a world where women were often powerless, during a century roiling with change, Victoria went on to rule the most powerful country on earth with a decisive hand.
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Masterpiece!!
- By DKSTRYKER on 01-07-24
By: Julia Baird
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And There Was Light
- Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle
- By: Jon Meacham
- Narrated by: Jon Meacham
- Length: 17 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Hated and hailed, excoriated and revered, Abraham Lincoln was at the pinnacle of American power when secessionists gave no quarter in a clash of visions bound up with money, race, identity, and faith. In him we can see the possibilities of the presidency as well as its limitations. This book tells the story of Lincoln from his birth on the Kentucky frontier to his leadership during the Civil War to his tragic assassination: his rise, his self-education, his loves, his bouts of depression, his political failures, his deepening faith, and his persistent conviction that slavery must end.
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A Winner
- By Diane Moore on 10-31-22
By: Jon Meacham
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When the Game Was War
- The NBA's Greatest Season
- By: Rich Cohen
- Narrated by: Cary Hite
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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The 1980s were a transformative decade for the NBA. Since its founding in 1946, the league had evolved from a bruising, earthbound game of mostly nameless, underpaid players to one in which athletes became household names for their thrilling, physics-defying play. The 1987–88 season was the peak of that golden era, a year of incredible drama that featured a pantheon of superstars in their prime—the most future Hall of Famers competing at one time in any given season—battling for the title, and for their respective legacies.
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Phil Jackson accuses Red Auerbach of cheap tactics
- By Sean on 01-03-24
By: Rich Cohen
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Professional Troublemaker
- The Fear-Fighter Manual
- By: Luvvie Ajayi Jones
- Narrated by: Luvvie Ajayi Jones
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Luvvie Ajayi Jones is known for her trademark wit, warmth, and perpetual truth-telling. But even she's been challenged by the enemy of progress known as fear. She was once afraid to call herself a writer, and nearly skipped out on doing a TED talk that changed her life because of imposter syndrome. As she shares in Professional Troublemaker, she's not alone.
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I’m missing something
- By Cheval Violet on 04-22-21
Insightful and through
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Meta fka Facebook
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I am in the middle of building my own social network and am reading this book as a way to know what to expect from Mark Zuckerberg in the future. Also to know how he thinks, his end goals for building Facebook. To that end this book has been extremely helpful and I appreciate the time and thought the author put into its content.
Well worth the read especially if you’re in the space.
Went great until RUSSIA
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Amazing FB bio the best ever
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The Interior Workings of Facebook
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Fantastic book on Facebook
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Well articulated
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No bias from the author; he gave credit were credit was due but was also relentless in pointing out Facebook's horrible privacy issues and of course Cambridge Analytica.
Really great book.
Very interesting
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amazing!! mind changer
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I think this book is important because unless you’ve really followed Facebook news closely, the individual incidents that have made major news, without this context, appear random. This book provides that context and sheds a bit of light onto what Facebook has really become and the power that it wields.
The facts and information presented here have reshaped my opinion of Mark and the company - both positively and negatively.
It left me wanting more. One of the best books I’ve read this year without question.
Added to my “must read” list
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