I seem to have been drawn to yet another book about Silicon Valley, billionaires, and bad behaviour. Some of the whistle blower revelations in here didn’t surprise me, but others were eye opening to say the least.
This book saw lots of media coverage and reviews on release, so grabbed a copy when it appeared on the newly arrived shelf at our local Oxfam bookshop. The author held a senior global policy role at Facebook and spent time working alongside all the most senior figures… Zuckerberg, Sandberg and co.
From reading previous works about Twitter, Musk, OpenAI etc. the obsession with growth, profit, and dominance over any and all rivals was not a shock. Nor was the willingness at the highest levels to break the rules (see Uber and AirBnBs approach to regulation) or complete lack of care for workers (see Code Dependent) surprising.
And the sociopathic nature of the leadership fits into the popular cod-psychology framework; but still the explicit examples of abuse or power and lack of empathy are still quite shocking.
Reading examples of sexual harassment from not only senior men but also women leaders is really something; and the utter lack of self-awareness from Zuckerberg that he could be presidential material is laughable. Although given the current POTUS perhaps not?
A fast-flowing narrative, not a book that blows the doors off but definitely another well documented scare story about the broken individuals that control so much of the infrastructure of our 21st century lives.
