
Lab Rats
How Silicon Valley Made Work Miserable for the Rest of Us
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Narrated by:
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Dan Lyons
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By:
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Dan Lyons
New York Times best-selling author Dan Lyons exposes how the "new oligarchs" of Silicon Valley have turned technology into a tool for oppressing workers in this "passionate" (Kirkus) and "darkly funny" (Publishers Weekly) examination of workplace culture.
At a time of soaring corporate profits and plenty of HR lip service about "wellness", millions of workers - in virtually every industry - are deeply unhappy. Why did work become so miserable? Who is responsible? And does any company have a model for doing it right?
For two years, Lyons ventured in search of answers. From the innovation-crazed headquarters of the Ford Motor Company in Detroit, to a cult-like "Holocracy" workshop in San Francisco, and to corporate trainers who specialize in...Legos, Lyons immersed himself in the often half-baked and frequently lucrative world of what passes for management science today. He shows how new tools, workplace practices, and business models championed by tech's empathy-impaired power brokers have shattered the social contract that once existed between companies and their employees. These dystopian beliefs - often masked by pithy slogans like "We're a Team, Not a Family" - have dire consequences: millions of workers who are subject to constant change, dehumanizing technologies - even health risks.
A few companies, however, get it right. With Lab Rats, Lyons makes a passionate plea for business leaders to understand this dangerous transformation, showing how profit and happy employees can indeed coexist.
©2018 Dan Lyons (P)2018 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
"Dan Lyons's Lab Rats defies easy description. It is hilarious, but not funny. I sputtered laughing and choked crying (literally, not figuratively) as I read it. Yes, to an extreme, Lyons gives Silicon Valley the thrashing that it, alas, largely deserves. But in the final third of the book, he offers us an effectively illustrated way out - an approach to work and business that puts people first, profitably serves customers, and makes the world a little bit better in the process." (Tom Peters, New York Times best-selling author of In Search of Excellence)
"[Lyons] argues persuasively.... A passionate indictment of brutal workplace culture." (Kirkus Reviews)
"I loved Dan Lyons's book Disrupted. With Lab Rats, he takes his critique of the modern workplace to the next level, to show how Silicon Valley's sometimes disturbing ideas about how to treat employees now pervade many workplaces. This is a fascinating, thought-provoking, hilarious, and sometimes harrowing account of current work culture." (Gretchen Rubin, number-one New York Times best-selling author of The Happiness Project and The Four Tendencies)
When I started reading Lab Rats I was expecting a follow-up to Disrupted. It's not. but don't be disappointed. This book is even more important. It's about the need to make work more human. It's a call against greed, and for socially-responsible capitalism (even though the author does not use this term).
It's a fun read, as I expected. Dan's message is important. One everyone that should be mandatory for every startup executive. Dan is right about what is wrong in Silicon Valley, and to an extent, across the US.
A much needed perspective on humanizing work
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And, it starts out really strong, with a continuation and updated skewering of Amazon, Netflix, Reed Hoffman, Reed Hastings, Jeff Bozos, and so many others. His general thesis is fantastic — that old line businesses, desperately wanting to remain relevant, have been porting “practices” (such as they are) and film-flam management techniques, grafting these onto their certainly challenged business models (like Ford, as a good example).
But the last 3-4 chapters or so squandered all this good momentum. Dan’s antidote to amoral bro culture and Uber-like practices that dehumanize workers is … a floor cleaning business, or something, that gives its employees “true vacations” and “an opportunity to grow into senior management”.
Dan fails to recognize structural changes occurring in the way work is done, and no, we aren’t all going to pivot and launch mopping startups.
I may revise this later, but having just finished the audiobook, I was left uneven with the entirety of the effort.
Loved “Disrupted”, and this starts strong, but…
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It's a book about feeling as facts
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This book has encouraged me to look deeper into Basecamp and stuff by their owners.
Sometimes it seems like the author still has some unresolved resentment
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An eye opener
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Not even close to his last book Disrupted.
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great breakdown of the I.T. world & affected world
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The right idea but based on questionable assumptions
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Leftist drivel
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His talks about stress and the high tech environment are more balanced and better informed.
Nice polemic - just wait till he talks about something you have experience with
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