Uncanny Valley
A Memoir
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Narrated by:
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Suehyla El-Attar
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By:
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Anna Wiener
About this listen
A New York Times Best Seller
"Narrator Suehyla El-Attar has a strong voice for this memoir of a woman's journey into the mostly male world of tech start-ups in Silicon Valley. She is energetic, funny, and swift while telling the story of Anna Wiener's acculturation from book publishing in Manhattan to the dot-com boom in San Francisco." (AudioFile Magazine)
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and a January 2020 IndieNext Pick. An Amazon Best Book of January. One of Vogue's 22 Books to Read this Winter, The Washington Post's 10 Books to Read in January, Elle's 12 Best Books to Read in 2020, The New York Times' 12 Books to Read in January, Esquire's 15 Best Winter Books, Paste's 10 Most Anticipated Nonfiction Books of 2020, and Entertainment Weekly's 50 Most Anticipated Books of 2020.
"A definitive document of a world in transition: I won't be alone in returning to Uncanny Valley for clarity and consolation for many years to come." (Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion)
The prescient account of a journey in Silicon Valley: A defining memoir of our digital age.
In her mid-20s, at the height of tech industry idealism, Anna Wiener - stuck, broke, and looking for meaning in her work, like any good millennial - left a job in book publishing for the promise of the new digital economy. She moved from New York to San Francisco, where she landed at a big-data startup in the heart of the Silicon Valley bubble: A world of surreal extravagance, dubious success, and fresh-faced entrepreneurs hell-bent on domination, glory, and, of course, progress.
Anna arrived amidst a massive cultural shift, as the tech industry rapidly transformed into a locus of wealth and power rivaling Wall Street. But amid the company ski vacations and in-office speakeasies, boyish camaraderie and ride-or-die corporate fealty, a new Silicon Valley began to emerge: One in far over its head, one that enriched itself at the expense of the idyllic future it claimed to be building.
Part coming-age-story, part portrait of an already-bygone era, Anna Wiener’s memoir is a rare first-person glimpse into high-flying, reckless startup culture at a time of unchecked ambition, unregulated surveillance, wild fortune, and accelerating political power. With wit, candor, and heart, Anna deftly charts the tech industry’s shift from self-appointed world savior to democracy-endangering liability, alongside a personal narrative of aspiration, ambivalence, and disillusionment.
Unsparing and incisive, Uncanny Valley is a cautionary tale, and a revelatory interrogation of a world reckoning with consequences its unwitting designers are only beginning to understand.
A Macmillan Audio production from MCD
©2020 Anna Wiener (P)2020 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year, 2020
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"Narrator Suehyla El-Attar has a strong voice for this memoir of a woman's journey into the mostly male world of tech start-ups in Silicon Valley. She is energetic, funny, and swift while telling the story of Anna Wiener's acculturation from book publishing in Manhattan to the dot-com boom in San Francisco.... El-Attar's easy narrative style keeps us listening." (AudioFile Magazine)
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From the award-winning entrepreneur USA Today named one of the twenty-one most influential Blacks in technology comes an empowering, bracingly honest, entertaining blueprint for success in life and work—including the true story of what really happened to MoviePass—straight from the cofounder and former CEO himself.
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Thoroughly enjoyed this fascinating memoir
- By Carla M Fisher on 12-14-24
By: Stacy Spikes
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Samsung Rising
- The Inside Story of the South Korean Giant That Set Out to Beat Apple and Conquer Tech
- By: Geoffrey Cain
- Narrated by: Michael Braun
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Based on years of reporting on Samsung for The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and Time, from his base in South Korea, and his countless sources inside and outside the company, Geoffrey Cain offers a penetrating look behind the curtains of the biggest company nobody in America knows. Seen for decades in tech circles as a fast follower rather than an innovation leader, Samsung today has grown to become a market leader in the United States and around the globe.
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Misleading title
- By Kevin on 02-25-21
By: Geoffrey Cain
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Broad Band
- The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet
- By: Claire L. Evans
- Narrated by: Claire L. Evans
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Women are not ancillary to the history of technology; they turn up at the very beginning of every important wave. But they've often been hidden in plain sight, their inventions and contributions touching our lives in ways we don't even realize. Vice reporter and YACHT lead singer Claire L. Evans finally gives these unsung female heroes their due with her insightful social history of the Broad Band, the women who made the Internet what it is today. Evans shows us how these women built and colored the technologies we can't imagine life without.
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Inspiring
- By Jean on 03-29-18
By: Claire L. Evans
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Targeted
- The Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower's Inside Story of How Big Data, Trump, and Facebook Broke Democracy and How It Can Happen Again
- By: Brittany Kaiser
- Narrated by: Brittany Kaiser
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this explosive memoir, a political consultant and technology whistleblower reveals the disturbing truth about the multi-billion-dollar data industry, revealing to the public how companies are getting richer using our personal information and exposing how Cambridge Analytica exploited weaknesses in privacy laws to help elect Donald Trump - and how this could easily happen again in the 2020 presidential election.
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Heavy on Kaiser, Light on Cambridge Analytica’s Data Operations
- By Morgan H Hoban on 11-05-19
By: Brittany Kaiser
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Primal Branding
- Create Zealots for Your Brand, Your Company, and Your Future
- By: Patrick Hanlon
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
What is it that made Starbucks an overnight sensation and separated it from other coffee house companies? Why do many products with great product innovation, perfect locations, terrific customer experiences, even breakthrough advertising, fail to get the same visceral traction in the marketplace as brands like Apple and Nike?
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Good book, hard to stay interested
- By Axiom Brevity on 11-21-16
By: Patrick Hanlon
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Winging It: Stop Thinking, Start Doing
- Why Action Beats Planning Every Time
- By: Emma Isaacs
- Narrated by: Emma Isaacs
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Women are notorious over-preparers and underestimators when it comes to their own readiness to try something new. But as Emma teaches, what most often holds us back are our own fears, excuses, and doubts. With her revolutionary manifesto, Winging It, Emma shares a rallying cry for all women to “do the things that scare you, build your wealth, make an impact, fail lots, and get up and try again”.
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Good advice
- By Amanda Schmidt on 05-28-21
By: Emma Isaacs
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Ahead of the Curve
- Two Years at Harvard Business School
- By: Philip Delves Broughton
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 2004 Philip Delves Broughton abandoned a post as Paris bureau chief of the London Daily Telegraph to join 900 other would-be tycoons on the Harvard Business School's plush campus. With acute and often uproarious candor, he assesses the school's success at teaching the traits it extols as most important in business: leadership, decisiveness, ethical behavior, and work/life balance.
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On one breath.
- By Atkins on 05-17-22
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The Art of Business Wars
- Battle-Tested Lessons for Leaders and Entrepreneurs from History's Greatest Rivalries
- By: David Brown
- Narrated by: David Brown
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Based on the chart-topping Business Wars podcast, stories, and lessons from history’s greatest business rivalries, interspersed with audio clips from the podcast. Using Chinese military genius Sun Tzu’s strategies as a guide, Brown examines why some companies triumph while others crumble....
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Just a repeat of the pod cast…..
- By Vm2008 on 02-01-22
By: David Brown
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Chronicles of a Fashion Buyer
- The Mostly True Adventures of an International Fashion Buyer
- By: Mercedes Gonzalez
- Narrated by: Mercedes Gonzalez
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Fashion is a business of smoke and mirrors, notorious for crushing the souls of most who dare to be part of the industry. Go on a global expedition with New York City-based fashion buyer, strategist, and consultant, Mercedes Gonzalez, as she learns that there is no glamour in fashion and that only cutthroat corporate espionage prevails. From politicking with blood diamond dealers and Russian kingpins to living in indigenous villages, she has relied on her street smarts and fear of her uncle in order to outwit the industry tyrants at their own game.
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Very Enagaging
- By Rainbow on 07-31-23
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Play Nice but Win
- A CEO's Journey from Founder to Leader
- By: Michael Dell, James Kaplan
- Narrated by: Michael Dell
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
In 1984, soon-to-be college dropout Michael Dell hid signs of his fledgling PC business in the bathroom of his University of Texas dorm room. Almost 30 years later, at the pinnacle of his success as founder and leader of Dell Technologies, he found himself embroiled in a battle for his company’s survival. What he’d do next could ensure its legacy — or destroy it completely.
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Not perfect, but worth a listen
- By James S. on 11-09-21
By: Michael Dell, and others
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The Big Life
- Embrace the Mess, Work Your Side Hustle, Find a Monumental Relationship, and Become the Badass Babe You Were Meant to Be
- By: Ann Shoket
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Ann Shoket
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Big Life is packed with actionable guidance combined with personal advice from high-profile millennial women who have already achieved tremendous success, plus intimate conversations with a cast of compelling characters and Shoket's own stories on her quest for The Big Life. You'll learn to tackle all of the issues on heavy rotation in your mind.
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Just OK
- By Alexandra Medina on 05-15-17
By: Ann Shoket
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The Invisible Heart
- An Economic Romance
- By: Russell D. Roberts
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Invisible Heart takes a provocative look at business, economics, and regulation through the eyes of Sam Gordon and Laura Silver, teachers at the exclusive Edwards School in Washington, D.C. Sam lives and breathes capitalism. He thinks that most government regulation is unnecessary or even harmful. He believes that success in business is a virtue. He believes that our humanity flourishes under economic freedom. Laura prefers Wordsworth to the Wall Street Journal.
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One of Susie Bright's Misses
- By Anne in State College on 10-27-15
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Antisocial
- Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation
- By: Andrew Marantz
- Narrated by: Andrew Marantz
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
From a rising star at The New Yorker, a deeply immersive chronicle of how the optimistic entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley set out to create a free and democratic internet - and how the cynical propagandists of the alt-right exploited that freedom to propel the extreme into the mainstream.
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Amazing read!!!
- By Nick H on 10-23-19
By: Andrew Marantz
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Bait and Switch
- The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream
- By: Barbara Ehrenreich
- Narrated by: Anne Twomey
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The best-selling author of Nickel and Dimed goes back undercover to do for America's ailing middle class what she did for the working poor. Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed explored the lives of low-wage workers. Now, in Bait and Switch, she enters another hidden realm of the economy: the world of the white-collar unemployed.
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A terrible book - princess Barbara goes undercover
- By Peter on 11-07-05
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Small Data
- The Tiny Clues That Uncover Huge Trends
- By: Martin Lindstrom
- Narrated by: Ricco Fajardo
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Martin Lindstrom, a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, harnesses the power of "small data" in his quest to discover the next big thing. Hired by the world's leading brands to find out what makes their customers tick, Martin Lindstrom spends 300 nights a year in strangers' homes, carefully observing every detail in order to uncover their hidden desires and, ultimately, the clues to a multimillion-dollar product.
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Fascinating!!
- By Fact addict on 03-08-16
By: Martin Lindstrom
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Interesting, but not well explained
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Fifteen million Americans a year are plagued with alcoholism. Five million of them are women. Many of them, like Caroline Knapp, started in their early teens and began to use alcohol as "liquid armor", a way to protect themselves against the difficult realities of life. In this extraordinarily candid and revealing memoir, Knapp offers important insights not only about alcoholism, but about life itself and how we learn to cope with it.
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What listeners say about Uncanny Valley
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- sandysummer
- 02-04-20
Paradigm Enriched
Born in 1947, TV didn’t arrive in my little valley until I was 9. Rotary wall, party line phones, inter... what? But I now have a fancy phone that I can ask questions and get lucid answers, WiFi runs my home and Entertainments. Anna, bless you for filling in much for me; a paradigm changer for sure. Thank you for your crisp, clear, vocabulary challenging, witty writing. Well done!
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4 people found this helpful
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- christie
- 01-26-20
Wonderful insight lovely writing
Some pearls in this book, especially in the beginning. The “bingo” episode is priceless. Wonderful view into Silicon Valley from a woman’s perspective and from the perspective of someone who hasn’t drunk the kool aid. In the end, a reminder of the value of three dimensions.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Sandeep Bakhshi
- 12-21-20
Wonderful narration
Great book and content - really thought provoking and the narrator (Suehyla) did a fantastic job to bring the book to life
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- Joseph Jay Williams
- 06-19-20
Extremely well-written, unabashed narrative which induces thought provoking insight
Defiantly original. Anna takes on an outsider’s “insider” view on what it’s like working in Silicon Valley’s hottest start-ups and living inside one of the most esteemed “ecosystems” of our times.
I also really enjoyed the thought-provoking questions about the role of technology in society and what influences millennial desire among others, that she poses through satirical prose.
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- Daryl Kulak
- 06-15-21
It's a Memoir, Not a Diatribe
This is a beautiful, beautiful book. I enjoyed it so much. Anna Wiener writes of her own life, and how curiosity took her from a role as personal assistant in the New York's publishing industry to the center of Silicon Valley life. She writes so personally, exposing all her own naïveté and fumbly social skills without holding anything back.
Perhaps, judging by the title, I had expected this to be a breathless exposé of the wrongdoings of the tech industry. Certainly, we've seen lots of those. But this book isn't that. It's just a memoir, and, because of that, it is so much more enlightening than a book that has a point to hammer home. I had also thought that it might be about how artificial intelligence and robotics can unnerve people when it gets to be too similar to how humans look and act (known as the "uncanny valley") but it has nothing to do with that either.
Instead, it is a well-written story of a woman who comes to the Silicon Valley boys' club looking for work, finds it, performs it well and wonders, the whole time, what is really going on in this strange place. The tech industry's infamous misogyny is on display, to be sure, but only because Anna experiences it firsthand and is affected by it, as are the women around her. But I like that the book never devolves into a diatribe, partly because the author herself holds her own point of view so gingerly, always willing to question it and change her mind. The vignettes of her dating life or the struggle to find affordable living in San Francisco just make the story more charming, and do not detract from the study of one of the most important industries of the past fifty years. If anything, they reinforce it.
I have worked in the tech industry for almost forty years, part of that in the Valley, and I found myself going through a similar transformation to what Anna experienced. But it was still a new experience for me reading this book (listening to it), because she is so much more contemplative, introspective and questioning than I'll ever be. And that makes for a great book. Are the giants of Silicon Valley a) heroes who are delivering a new economy and lifestyle for us all, or b) are they nothing more than the latest version of robber barons, or c) are they just a bunch of self-important goofballs clowning around and lucking into money while they build stuff that is largely useless and won't have any kind of lasting importance? Anna Wiener thinks to ask these questions. And I'm really glad she does.
Also - kudos to Suehyla El-Attar for the narration. She brings this important, personal story to life in every line. I actually wrote her name down in case I need someone to narrate my next audiobook. She's really good.
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- David
- 01-16-21
excellent tale
Provocative and insightful. a tale about power, money, idealism, and the seduction of a generation. About wanting to belong and the price of the tech world on its employees.
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- Anthony
- 02-23-20
Prose is solid; author is a jerk
So tiresome and yet so well written. The author would be charming if not so insufferably critical and self-indulgently lacking in agency.
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- Jonathan Hunt
- 02-26-20
Perhaps the best audio book read I've ever heard.
A solid funny overview of what Silicon Valley and the tech industry has become.
Outstanding narrator made this a pleasure to listen to
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- Amazon Customer
- 04-10-20
Damn that was good.
Read or listen to this book. It’s like clearing the fog and seeing the world you’ve been living in. I realized I’d been hoping that the world, and the powerful men who run it, were better-managed, more just, more curious, more complex than they are. It’s scary to admit that meritocracy is a cover for self-interest. It means no one is in charge and planning to benevolently save the world.
It’s also an honest account of work as a young woman, underestimated, exploited, and treated as expendable in both the stodgy publishing industry and in tech.
This book asks what else is possible once we realize how little truth there is to the stories powerful people tell about their genius or righteousness.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-06-20
Engaging must read!
I enjoyed listening to this book. it was a lot to digest! The tech industry is like any other corporation, turning a profit. its just younger players making the same deals as their corporate fathers before them.
That's what businesses do.
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