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The prescient, page-turning account of a journey in Silicon Valley: a defining memoir of our digital age
In
her mid-twenties, 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.