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tl;dr Review:
An attempt at a scathing look at the underbelly of the tech industry, but without any real depth.
Full Review:
Described by the publisher as follows, the promise of the book held more than the actual tome.
A scathing, sardonic exploration of Silicon Valley tech culture, laying bare the greed, hubris, and retrograde politics of an industry that aspires to radically transform society for its own benefit.
At the height of the startup boom, journalist Corey Pein set out for Silicon Valley with little more than a smartphone and his wits. His goal: to learn how such an overhyped industry could possibly sustain itself as long as it has. But to truly understand the delirious reality of the tech entrepreneurs, he knew he would have to inhabit that perspective—he would have to become an entrepreneur himself. Thus Pein begins his journey—skulking through gimmicky tech conferences, pitching his over-the-top business ideas to investors, and rooming with a succession of naive upstart programmers whose entire lives are managed by their employers—who work endlessly and obediently, never thinking to question their place in the system.
In showing us this frantic world, Pein challenges the positive, feel-good self-image that the tech tycoons have crafted—as nerdy and benevolent creators of wealth and opportunity—revealing their self-justifying views and their insidious visions for the future. Vivid and incisive, Live Work Work Work Die is a troubling portrait of a self-obsessed industry bent on imposing its disturbing visions on the rest of us.
Some parts of this description and its corresponding detailing in the book are true.
Is the tech world frantic? Absolutely. Do some of the tech giants give themselves airs of being there to better society, when in fact (cough*Facebook*cough) they may be doing more harm then good? 100%. Are the lives of those who were in San Francisco and Silicon Valley long before the tech boom despairing of these upstarts and what they’ve done to their cities? Sure. Is it super bro-y and white and about who you know? Yup.
But is the entire tech world rife with evil and nefarious characters out to do us all harm? No.
And that’s where this book starts to veer into the slightly ridiculous. If you go in looking for major flaws in the system, of course you will find them. But are many of these problems (lack of diversity, male dominated, over-worked underlings, frantic pace, etc) unique to tech? Not at all. Look at banking and Wall Street and various other industries for plenty of examples.
I’d even go so far as to say I feel like there are far more evil characters in the financial industry than in the tech one.
So while I appreciate some of his discussion of the flaws of tech, I can’t get behind his view that it’s the monster he paints it to be.
I give this book 2.5 out of 5 thumbs up.
