And many publications. And mikes coverage won an award for distinguished business reporting. He writes frequently about uber, facebook and other socalled giants for the times and appears often on cnbc bchl krch , and msnbc. The book signing will be in the back and appreciate if you keep the line along the wall to your far right. Enjoy reading, everybody. [applause] i thought there would be 20 people here. Yeah, its all friends, friends and and a fireside chat. A congressional hearing, be on your cspan behavior, all of us, especially mike. Yeah, im not going to curse tonight, i think. Im going to try not to. I was thinking and i think you were thinking you should probably start off with reading something. I dont know how many people here have actually read any part of the book, but i think it would be nice to, you know, have you read a part. Thank you, yeah. Thank you guys for coming, also, and especially those of you who are standing. Ive stood at many an event at this bookstore. By frequent customer, a person who needs to go on a run to here. And then stop. But, yeah, thank you guys for coming, this is really nice and overwhelming. So i figure i would read something toward the end of the book, a section dear to my heart about Venture Capitalists on twitter. Its reasonably relevant. Are there any Venture Capitalists here . [laughter] they wouldnt dare, i dont think. No, no. Oh, oh, i see a hand. [laughter] great. Thank you for your service. [laughte [laughter] do you think you hate yourself, asked the therapist in berkeley. Coming on strong for an intake session i thought, but the next day i found myself following a bunch of Venture Capitalists on the micro platform they were discussing income and i couldnt look away. They were looking at the urban poor. As the iceberg melted and ticked to inhabitability, they were discussing ai, whether or not china would own it would bring about the third world war. They want today see Artificial Intelligence jump start the renaissan renaissance, so they could do that and the rest of us could focus on art. Should ai inspire revolution, owning bunkers in new zealand stocked with guns and peanut butter. And id believe in ai when they were in out of a job. Most days they talked ideas. How is cement enlightenment, theories to complex social problems. The future of media, the decline of higher ed. Cultural stagnation and the builders mindset. They talked about how to find a good for generating more ideas presumably to have more things to talk about. Despite the feverish of open markets, continuous renovation the venture class could not be relied on for nuances of capitalism. They sniped about the structural hypocrisy of capitalism from a smartphone as if defending capital from a smartphone were not grotesque. They saw the world through a kaleidoscope of startups. If you want to eliminate inequality was to start up your own company wrote the accelerator. Every capitalist person replied an angel investor. The area like antiquities, learn from the scholars and meet other people in your generation and return home with the knowledge and networks you need. Did they know that people could see them . [laughter] the Venture Capitalists were not above inspiration culture. Its so nice that youre micd because your laughter is beautiful for me. Sorry. The Venture Capitalists were not above inspiration culture. They shared reading lists and product recommendations and advised their followers to stay humble. Eat healthy they said, drink less, travel, meditate, find your why. Work on your marriage, and talked up the primacy of grit. Whenever they denigrated the worklife balance as soft or antithetical to the termination for startup success, i wondered whether how many of them had an executive assistant, a personal assista assistant. I couldnt imagine making millions of dollars every year and choosing to stir on social media. Almost an internet addiction. Gloves off, just email each other. They do. They talk on whatsapp. Then again, if the internet was good for anything, wasnt it this . Transparency and action, access to the mind of the industry elite. Theres no better way to know which Venture Capitalist wrung their hands over the impact of identity politics on productivity or how applying practices to life in woodside were going. And entrepreneurs who couldnt scale or mistook criticism as harassment and perceived themselves as victims of digital, and how many of identified ideas, and Investment Strategies of the people transforming society the people i was helping make rich. And cut it there. [applaus [applause] thank you for my copy. So im going to [inaudible] what the folks were talking about. Mixed bag, an ambivalent book. So i dont know how many folks in the audience have read it, but a few, probably not too many, im thinking about probably the beginning of your narrative and, you know, your approach in coming into tech after your career in publishing. From publishing to tech and im wondering what happened. What was from the beginning were you sort of ready to skewer how things were here or did you come in with a sort of, maybe things are as optimistic as they seem as sort of genuine as they seem . How did you come into this . Wideeyed is definitely a good description. The year is 2012. Im working in publishing and i realize that people make money in their jobs and this is a revelation to me. Yeah, i think for a long time for a while i for a long time i wanted to really believe it there was sort of an intricate balance of selfdelusion or something that lasted for a long time, like a game of solitaire that lasted for long time or Something Like that. I think that the interesting funny to me the way people speak and the way sort of hike corporate fielty has to be funny otherwise its terribly depressing, but i didnt think about writing about it or like skewering it in any critical way or criticizing it gently even. I think im pretty fair in the book. Its not wildly negative book. I think i read the meanness part. My dad was like, the Venture Capitalists really dont get a break in your book. Got it going really hardments they can take it, if anyone can take it its the vc. Theyre just middlemen. Sorry to the one guy in the back. [laughter] yeah. Were both openminded individuals who could be, could listen to a different narrative. Just a structural position. Is this like a, you know, a lot of the criticism that i hear a lot of times, oh, new yorkers are coming in and just sort of bringing their sort of critical approach to this. And i guess im wondering if this is if your criticism is unique to how things work around here or could you apply this to other industries, right. Like you were in publishing beforehand. Is that just as right for some sort of spinal tapesque commentary . Right, yes, absolutely. [laughter]. I mean, i think that business is inherently interesting. I think that the that that workplaces are provide the stuff of literature. I wouldnt have necessarily identified that as someone inside of a workplace. I dont know that i would have necessarily written a book about Book Publishing. Many have done so before, many a traitorous Editorial Assistant, but i and in the book as Editorial Assistant and goes through the trappings of what thats like and i dont know how theres just no future in that. Book publishing, the industries have and publishing are different obviously, but each has a sort of set of internal rules and norms and things that you take for granted and the social relationships you need to have to maintain certain professional ambitions and this might be just what it is to be a person who works in business where the network is small. Sounds like twitter. [laughter]. Yeah, except, but maybe. Except your Career Advancement sort of depends who youre having dinner with on a thursday. Does that make sense . Yeah. But on twitter everyone is having dinner alone on twitter. Just separate, its decentralized. But i think that, yeah, i think that you could probably skewer on the industry, i just remember there are people in the room who are from the book world and suddenly i feel chasened. No, youve just got to go for it, man. The reason i wrote about tech and not Book Publishing, because i felt there hadnt been a time of first person narratives about this particular era. There had been first person narratives about previous arias that were from the similar vannage at that point of sort of entry level employees, nontechnical employee woman, whats it like to be a woman in tech, just kidding. And sorry, people keep asking me things like did . Is that a question you get a lot. So i assume youre a woman. To be a woman. You work in tech. How is that going . I think but i had it wasnt tribalist or like medium post about how to fire your staff, but like still have them feel good about the family, you know what i mean . Theres a lot of literature about tech that didnt reflect my own experience so i think theres a lot of literature about Book Publishing that reflects the common experience and hasnt exchanged for 60 years so its consistent material, anyway. And the next book in publishing. My next book focus on the two years in Book Publishing and no one will buy it. So you go from Book Publishing into Silicon Valley, theres this well, initially your first startup youre going based in new york. Yes, thats right. But its still a jump from publishing into tech, right . And i guess i wonder if there was, you know, now i guess you are branded for better or worse as like a skeptic of the arena, but i guess im wondering if there was a moment where you bought into what they were selling. Now, bought into like this is the i think a lot of folks in the valley just sort of believe, you can if you have a certain skillset, you can kind of go to whatever company, you know, but a lot of it is what youre trying to do and what youre trying to accomplish. Was for you like the feeling of being in a missiondriven organization where the mission wasnt well, tell us about the first before the good stuff. The First Company i went to work for was like a netflix for ebooks product although everybody was careful not to use the words, but it was ereading app initially for, i think, just iphone, that was like a library for a monthly fee and i had reached out because i read on the par ris review blog that this company it raised 3 million and its like their seed, it wasnt a series a. I like that reading the paris review. Thats where i got my businesses, a lot. And to are me 3 million was like, oh sorry, cspan. Theyll bleep it out. This is like the future what the industry will be, like ebooks and i want to do that because i couldnt see a future for myself in books. 3 million is a lot its not for the Venture Capitalists and the banks, sorry, killing them. Sorry we dont know anything. I figured id be like the book expert so i wrote a lot of emails to them where i was, i love books, i know its annoying to you that i have to keep can go what a back end is. Im a reader and you need someone like me on staff and they didnt, but they were very kind about it and were like, listen, theres this company in San Francisco you should know about and doing id been using this software, Analytic Software to see how people were using the app and just doing like very minimal, not even analysis, just like Data Collection and they were like, the people who make the software at the startup they have fewer than 20 people. Theyre the next unicorn, rocket ship, blah, blah, blah. Well, rocket ship, i want to be on a rocket ship. Everyone in Book Publishing is like i think this could potentially make the list in three years. Yeah, rocket ship sounded good so i went and interviewed at this company that makes a Data Analytics product. And thats that. Sorry, this feels like a job interview. [laughter] what do you want . Okay, so, you know, i guess im wondering was there a moment where like you were inspired. Oh, yeah. And well get into it, you know, for whatever. And, but i you know, i think the thing that a lot of folks in lets say new york or in journal or whatever is like a side on the mission right. And there for you at least in the beginning. Yeah, yeah. My i bought so i was not a journalist at any point until like last year, and so that skepticism and that cynicism. I wasnt reading a lot about the Tech Industry, didnt know you had cynical snark from wag and businesses like you wont believe what this young billionaire wears on sundays. And its like the same thing he wears every day, 17 of the same outfit, but i think that there weve not talked a lot about Book Publishing, but feeling there was momentum, everything at a dead end to suddenly be at a 20 Person Company and to matter, to feel useful not only was i useful, but i was contributeening a way that actually kept the momentum going and customers support. Like the genius was here to rebuild our infrastructure. It was less about the mission of the company than the feeling of working on something with a small group of people who i really liked and it was working and that seemed so improbable that youd have this organization of 20 people run by a couple of 24, 25 year olds, it just kept Getting Better and better. And this is my pitch for everyone to go work for a small startup. But i think i was really down for that momentum, if not like this is going to make the world a better place. I think i was like analytics is fascinating and i personally find this product really interesting and can sort of justify it as like an extension of my socialology bachelors degree from six years ago. But you know, i i dont think i was ever like Data Collection, storage, analysis, unbeknownst to the user, like god knows where it goes. Thats making the world betterment i was like this is fundamentally interesting and a business education, and i think this is an industry, obviously, that emphasizes the individual, right . And so i felt individual will i quite useful and great in a way that was died to the collective effort, but also, was distracting enough, i wasnt like perhaps Data Collection is part of a broader economy, you know. We werent having these conversations. That was yeah, you dont sort of get into the larger, whatever implications, what are you doing. No, because its working for your customers and theyre like, this is awesome, youre helping us optimize whatever flow to like achieve whatever goal which is usually just like some monetization event and everyone is stoked and everyone is making money and you make money when they make money and doesnt matter the intricacies. I was helping people use it, and youre helping us make money and thats the subtext and feels great, feels great oh, are you having a problem with the software, let me tell you how to fix it, have you ever had knowledge about something . Its amazing. [laughte [laughter]. I can fix your problem. Ive never ever fixed anyones problem in any way. So, anyway, theres a lot of intoxicating cultural stuff. So did you theres a lot in there, but the hierarchy of Customer Support versus you know, pins and whatever is interesting to me and im wondering how that like initially, you can feel good about your position in that company, but was that ever sort of like really underscored for you over time . Ive always heard the stories, well, theyre like having a culture so we want to go there or they dont value x enough. I guess im wondering if that was made clear to you over time. When sorry, when someone is like they have a heavy end who wants to go there. The hierarchy where you stood. Yeah, well, i feel like soft skills, hard skills dichotomy. Its very interesting and often soft skills, i think, or, you know, being told youre not technical enough or being asked to potentially show more credentials than someone else in your role. I think often like this dichotomy is kind of used as a cover for, like the perpetuation of certain inequities or bias or anyway, i think that its a gender, offensive racialized dichotomy, anyway not anyway. Interesting. I think the idea that engineering skills is more valuable has to do clearly with the market. But having been in like the position of trying to hire people for soft you know, whats considered soft skilled jobs or considered not technical jobs is hard and potentially harder for someone who can write fluently for data was more me harder than engineers finding a mid level engineer. And on both sides of that equation. But i think that, you know, engineering skills are the primary focus. A lot of the Company Perks are oriented toward hiring and retaining those employees. Obviously you cant have a product without it, i get it, but without those people, but it does lead to this sort of internal hierarchy that can leave a lot of people feeling like second class citizens and so i mentioned race and class well, i mentioned race and gender because i think that its sort of thats baked into that hierarchy as well, so it can influence the way things are running internally and thats what im kind of getting at. Kind of like one, appreciate you laying that out and i think thats now coming to bear a little bit more at least right now, but the questions around what should be the most, you know, prized position in the company. Who is actually hire and sort of i feel like fundamental assumption are now being actually questioned in the wake of whatever, just actually questioning them. Yeah, well, i think what is concerning to me is that is this conflation of your that i think is, its not specific unique to the valley, its like american capitalism, but feels amplified in the valley, this idea that your personal worth is directly correlated to your economic output or your Economic Contribution and your economic value, whatever your value in the marketplace and that theres something morally superior, in fact, about being an engineer, having a certain what is assumed to be a certain mindset or a certain value system and that has a sort of weird it resonates in different ways. I guess its this sort of like it leads to a certain hierarchy in certain companies, but it also leads to a mindset that is very oriented toward optimizing toward the bottom line or something, that has its just not like a humane approach to life or to the leadership or to organization. So, anyway, chatting away with the microphone. [laughter] i think the leadership thing is so, okay. So we get past your startup. We go to your next startup, and all sort of reference, but not exactly you get to the second ceo who is challenging or interesting, sort of like, i dont know exactly what i would describe him as, but he seems kind of archtypical one would have for a leader here and im wondering at least at the time, like an avatar for, you know, problems in leadership in tech or did you sort of see him as, whatever, a flawed human being . How did you sort of perceive this guy . Well, its in the book, mike. [laughter] yeah, so, the ceo of the company, the Second Company i worked for, the first in San Francisco. I was 24 when i joined the company, i was 25. Obviously worldly experience miles beyond. And he had been through the company had been through the common i think its incredibly hard thing to do to run a company of adults with dependents, and i dont envy anyone in that position, obviously you selfselect if youre lucky. And i have sympathy for someone growing up at the same time theyre learning to be a ceo. I think that the reason i dont Name Companies and dont name executives, there are a few of them, but one i feel that the behavior that i saw institutionally as well as individually was more a result of a sort of structural position than any individual failure and i realize that thats also sort of like an exculpatory narrative or exculpatory framework. If you havent read the book, she hasnt named any of the companies or any of the people, but there are some obvious illusions. Its very google its not to be coy or to be, like offer a puzzle for people to solve, although, im sure that that its kind of, maybe its and im not against more than i want to suggest, what i think is a sort of common leadership style, it has more to do with the incentives of the Business Models than of the industry and to maybe illustrate this, i told at another reading [inaudible] i feel like im Walking Around to the readings with my with my own book and like im an American Girl doll. Here i am with my book and telling my anecdotes, so i read some i forget what it was, i think it was in new york someone came up to me after a reading and read my book and mentioned how early members of my team were in a Conference Room and manager asked who are the five smartest people you know, write their names down and we all did this exercise. And then hes like look at your list, why dont they work here . And ments one of them was abraham lincoln. And i was like why would they work here . They have to make sense. There are so many other useful things to do in the world, interesting things to do in world. Why would my friends in graduate school they probably would make their way to tech. Why would people who are smart and talented and interested in other things, why would they work at this analytics company. Im here because i dont know what my purpose is in life and im trying to figure that out while making money and having Health Insurance. Its the five smart people you know should work here because it has economic value. That is what i mean about this conflation. Anyway, this story and this is what i think a lot. Do you think that hubris is endemic to how these things work or thats required to this is the anecdote that im telling, mike. Oh, sorry. Yes, yes, i totally do, the story, im behaving like i should have a one line answer for everything. So someone came up to me after the event and she was like, i same thing happened in my company. And actually it wasnt the first time i heard this, another woman who worked at a startup in San Francisco had texted me to say, this was like deja vu for me. I cant believe this happened to you, they must have all read it on a blog post because i, too, was pulled into a room and asked to write down the names of the five smartest people that i know, totally unrelated company and and i would call antiintellectual, more about that in the book, too, that has to do more with like people read business advice, theyve never run a company before, they suddenly have a ton of money, a ton of responsibility to their investors and responsibility to their employees and trying to figure out how to lead and read a blog post, here is how you can scale hiring and get really good people for your core team, you know, that will set the tone for the rest of your company, corral your employees in a Conference Room and ask them who the smartest people they know are and then like, push them to recruit them and say, oh, well pay you 5 to 8,000 per recruit. I tried so hard to recruit people who were and were not the smartest people i knew. But anyway, i think this is. [laughter] i think the industry has values. You could speak to this as well, that you maybe have seen this in your excellent book investigation of uber. And its called super punk by mike isaac. Its available at this bookstore. Hell be signing afterwards. I think the Company Cultures are shaped by the Business Model and shaped and incentives shaped by the Venture Capital and you have prioritization of speed and scale and whatever coupled with the sort of libertarian spirit of industry that has been incubating, if you will for 25 years, 30, 40 years, i dont know. And 20, longer, 50 years. And you kind of get this like weird cultural product that doesnt values expertise, values over consideration and research, has a sort of iterative i dont know where im going, im sorry, this is on cspan. So, all right, so its fair to say theres a lot of skewing in the book. Im wondering if theres parts of your experience in some of these companies that you take with you, like actual appreciate it . A lot of the time, journalist ins the valley, you get this a lot. Journalists in the valley are typically hidden from a lot of tech folks who think that tech is doing good for the world and unabashedly, unapologetic thing and even questioning that is dangerous sometimes and i guess im wondering for the benefit of that, if there are parts of the culture or whatever that you took away from your time in tech . No, there is. This is like the i think the heart the heart of the book is ambivalence. So i think there was a lot that i appreciated about working in tech. I dont know if in my 30s i would go back and appreciate the same things, to be totally honest. I think i happen to be the right age and have like the right yearnings to be sort of an ideal employee in a certain way. In my 20s. Im 32, like four years ago, when it mattered. But, yeah, in my 20s just having proved here and not knowing someone from a different city and trying to find meaning, told here is your meaning, run with it. I think what i admired and appreciated was the camaraderie, the sort of commitment to a common project, a collective project, if you will, i liked that people had autonomy or seemed to have autonomy at least for a little while. I think thats actually sort of the problem is people having autonomy who dont necessarily have the authority to have at that autonomy or shouldnt necessarily about you there seemed to be some potential in that, even though often the people with the most autonomy sort of replicates like, now, power structures that exist and you know, have existed for years, but initially that was excite to ing to me. I think that theres one more thing that i actually really did enjoy and appreciate about startup culture, oh, i think its very earnest, someone who is constantly vacillating between detached mockery and deep painful earnestness, i dont know if you can relate. [laughter]. My entire life. Anyone who is yeah. That they might be wrong, but i genuinely believe people in tech believe theyre doing good for the world and i trust them when they say it, i think whats missing is more of like a i think the problems are systemic. I dont think that they are necessarily rooted in the individual although id be curious what you make of that given your reporting on uber and travis my book. I do wonder, like, i dont actually know if youre legally allowed to answer this question, you just moved move to the next one if you want to, but do you feel like someone ive heard people say that uber couldnt exist if it didnt have this crazy culture. My question is should it exist and obviously that culture. That culture shouldnt exist and if you dont have at that culture and the company doesnt happen that maybe thats fine. But do you. Can any of. Do you feel like im sorry, do you think that where youre doing with this. Do you see a structural explanation for his behavior, with unone related to incentives and the incentives of the Business Model or of the industry that could potentially be for giving that. I think youre hitting at the exact right thing. I think the whole, like if you boil down how all of this works, youre getting investment in your company, you have to hit the next level or whatever that is, whether thats users or whether thats, revenue or something, and for most companies, can get kind of desperate so you have to do things that maybe might not be that legal. Or legal, right. And i dont know, i think its just baked into how a lot of this works, but i also think, i think theres justification, right, like the people who already sort of own the space, the incumbents, protected in ways that are not necessarily fair and you can kind of like believe and im not saying that this is wrong, but you can kind of believe in your own reasons for doing a lot of this stuff, right, so and also to just go back on my own argument, i think that people are in the same structural position and theyre not a not specifically calling someone a you have to be a jerk to do well in this industry, right . Depending who the ceo is. You know . Right. I dont know, you tell me. Seems unfair to answer that. So im thinking about sorry, im sweating right now. Im sorry. Im thinking about, you know, i think some of you heard the term tech lash at this point. Thats sort of a moment that were in, like this, phenomenon and maybe someone thinks what tech brings about is bad and some might call a trough of disillusionment. Were all eating from the trough of disillusionment. Thats me at like 11 00 at night when i get home. [laughte [laughter] , but im just, you know, you can you can wallo in this gnarly period for a long time and as a reporter, im wondering what the next part is. Are we going to say that tech is bad for long period of time . Is that what were saying or whats the whats the what is the where are we going, you know . Tell me the future. This is great leverage for me in my future career as a futurist. [laughter] so what if i just wanted to work for google and i told them i was the new i just, im looking for a grip. Yeah, i mean, i think tech i think potentially, gentler narrative for me right now would be not that tech is bad, but tech is boring and unimaginative. I just and what i mean by that is like there could be so much more, right . All of the forgive me, the tools are in place for there to be a much more interesting, vibrant, creative industry, more exploratory, more experimental. The problems were attack are not big enough . Have you not heard this criticism . Creative or, i think its its not to say that tech, some companies arent bad, some are bad and doing bad things, but i guess i feel like theres so much we havent tried yet and the industry is still relatively young or this i dont know, its hard to just be like this generation of the industry because its so rooted in the past and i dont want to say that its exceptional in any way, but got to work with what youve got. I feel theres a lot we havent tried with respect to kind of untangling some of the problems we found ourselves in now, which are related to things like privatization, commoditization, Data Collection, centralization, the reliance on ad networks, sort of atom ization and to scale like spotify that wipes out sorry. An emergency alert. Are you okay . Is everything okay . Sorry. Well, if theres an emergency, i would think that everyone would want to know. Im sorry. Yeah, i dont know, i guess i just feel i dont know what comes next. I feel the structural, the incentive. Until that changes well have companies for whom the highest position is to be a monopoly and i dont feel that that serves society best and i also feel that its really unimaginative. I think theres a lot happening in the industry thats really cynical and that has to do with this kind of baked in spirit of circumvention and im thinking of like theres a i dont mean to pick this out, this was from i was reading something earlier, but theres sorry, im choosing two paths as an example here, Something Like all of these huge hugely for me, lyft, and prefer to take public transportation, but do these circumvent civic participation or civic institutions, do they augment like mile ridership. And the other thing blasting one particular account that has marketed itself as an alternative to a College Degree, and part of that rational is that you can get a job really quickly that pays you extremely well sort of an income jump, respectable, i get it, useful, valuable, but also a way to avoid student debt that one might incur from getting a degree in english. For me. [laughter] like my nightmare to i have an english degree. I do not have an english degree, its like a chip on my shoulder. Rather the crisis here is we make it so hard to live that you need to orient your entire life like from your teenager years toward having a your education becomes instrumentalized in this way to get you a job. Thats a social failure, i think, thats not how, what education should be necessarily in a functional enriched society. I think that also you have this like you have the student debt crisis, totally legitimate that you would want to that a person would want to launch themselves into a different career track to pay off their debt, to avoid debt, but again, these are the startup model is to circumvent social institutions, its to privatize what should, i think, in a functional society be a public good or service. So, whether thats education or transportation. So, anyway, this is just my pitch for a different model, but i do think things have to change for that sort of Business Model to be less exciting to people, to be to not be the only option, right . I mean, its hard because you know, a, salaries are always going to be way bigger when youre outside of the existing model, but, b, i think like its just part of what i think disillusions people who dont want to to go into say, the Public Sector and incumbent companies and its stuck in what it is, right . Maybe theyre not like creating something new, maybe theyre just content in being at the status quo and i feel like part of whats exciting is the idea that you can break out, you know . So, i dont know. You work at a newspaper. [laughter] and i work at a magazine sort of. So, infiltrated so there are certain things that are for a reason, i think, and im not making im not trying to defend like the dmv website, did they get my info, did they not . This is like roulette, who knows . It will be interesting, ill just show up in three months. But i do think that the tech tends to value speed and scale and actually some things are perhaps better experienced at least, give me at least on the spiritual level, but i think also on the social level as processes, as something that builds over time, that is a collective effort that is, you know, reliant on i guess im thinking to your earlier question about tech versus publishing, like, this is an example i used before and i feel like im becoming a windup doll one thats like dying, like something you can continuously change answer push your continual bible product, you iterate, ship a patch or im not in anymore. I do think the products represents values of industry and our culture doesnt necessarily value from this or smallscale small business. Look at cities. Look at your cities, mike. You know what i mean, look around. Its not just intact. Tech is an application of social moments. So i do theres a lot of people here. Maybe we could start thinking of a few questions while ask if you last ones. I have a few friends that wanted me to ask you a few questions. They might not be your why are all tech people into not all tech people. [laughing] we spend too much time on the internet. You dont have to actually and to that question. I have a section in the book, edm, but i need to stay awake and it cant drink any more caffeine or if i get pumped before i dont do anything, but i need to be pumped. [laughing] i wrote my book on edm you can tell the sections, you can tell when i was like really blasting it. Its really motivating, whatever. I think that edm is i think theres an energy i think that theres, i think it could be made quickly. I think its music that has speed to it. I dont know. Why do you think everyone loves edm . Into someone in the audience i would love to ask . Kyle. Its really hard to read a practice based in the city and imagine getting a drum set. Its much easier to make music on a computer if you live in the city. I feel like thats happening all over, but like edm exploded in like 2008 and then ended in the 2000s and also coincides with rents getting more expensive. Real good answer. [laughing] i dont know. Theres an amazing profile in their magazine i believe by jessica but i could be wrong, probably wrong, im so wrong to whether it is by, about a pg. Ive never said that out loud. And its incredible. It explains that whole culture me a son whos ever been to an edm concert like this heart probably couldnt withstand the drug stuff fun at an concert. Anyway, i recommend reading that. Another question from a friend. What will it take to get tech ceos to question that Techno Solutions and philosophies that really undergird the valley narrative . Meaning like sort of technological conservatism that tech can be the solution to some of the worlds problems which i think a lot about. I think about Mark Zuckerberg Mark Zuckerbergs solution is more facebook. I dont know if thats a a vald path but it is about. Mark zuckerberg has solutions for the problems he created. Right. Even if i dont beat up on market, the larger thing is the answer to our problem is more of what we were doing, and will the underlying assumption here but thats not true at a guess im just wondering if will that ever change or do you think that sort of like the direction we are going . I dont know. If i knew what to change ceos mind i would be so wealthy. I wouldnt be here. Id be rolling in money. [laughing] i think in facebooks defense, which is this going to be i love it. Go. Im going to get counsel. Facebook does have unprecedented problems to deal with. I think for me the question is lets assume facebook exists and it will continue to exist, and Mark Zuckerberg will continue to lead the company. What does it mean for facebook to ethically responsibly deal with itself . For me just because my perspective, that has to be a question about content moderation and also about speed. Just because you can upload the video instantaneously doesnt mean you should be able to pick same deal with you too. What would it mean to throttle usergenerated content . What would it mean if you had your content moderators fulltime staff with fulltime benefits with Mental Health benefits, if necessary, if you paid them a living salary and you invested in research to the repercussions of this sort of work. To have experts in all of your, region experts for all the places where facebook exists, whatever. If youre taking the steps and get like i dont have a diagnosis for i just made that up, but for facebook to invest in a solution to itself i think would mean the total and utter collapse of facebook. For facebook, for the consumers, forget about the business side. To give an option for Data Retention or who data is shared with. I suspect a lot of people wouldnt care. I suspect a lot of people would also care plenty and that this could lead to the erosion of facebook as a business. You would probably get sort of a nice social platform where people just like posted articles about politics and no one cared. Instead you have i think it would be the collapse class ofa functional entity. In terms of like changing the world, the question that always comes for whom and to what end and what costs . Asked three questions. But i think theres no incentive for people to give differently. Theres no incentive for Mark Zuckerberg to be like you know would be great . If we spent all our money on making our contractors fulltime hires. And so then the question becomes okay, what are the levers that still exist . I think they are incredibly minimal. You have like regulation potentially. We havent tried that. And then you have like the collective leverage of people inside of these companies who come home i say we dont work on something might want to push for whatever policy. Obviously they want the workers to organize they dont want their workers to organize anyway so that becomes a question of what are the reasons a person would be scared to organize . May be immigration, visa, something to do with Health Insurance or facebook paying them fat salaries, whatever. I just think that these all bigger questions than just like anyone company or anyone industry. [inaudible] tell your friend i have no idea. Sorry. Does anyone have any question from the audience . Theres a hand already. I would love to hear what you all are thinking about because i came unprepared. Look at that, wow. There is a boom mic. I want to hear whether you had any response from this book by people in the book . Like if your intention was to create a bridge in a way and tell the story of the people there, did anybody reach out to you in a way that was surprising like understanding and marry your sort of you that youre not expecting . People ive worked with punches people in general . Any of them. A lot of people have reached out, and thats been interesting and exciting for me especially when it is people have worked in the industry. I think the book, because its observation and its personal, ive heard from people, and nothing has surprised me exactly, but im sort of surprised, i think whatever you write about something people of a lot of opinions about you are going to get people saying this is a political or political enough, its too political, too much personal story, not enough personal story. But i think i mean, i think the thing that always surprises me when people reach out and say i had exact same situation except i worked at a Different Company in a totally different you. That to me is sort of obviously selfserving and underscores my point that these are systemic issues. But i still remain surprised i that because its a personal book. You sort of want to believe these things only happened to you, and it can be devastating when you were actually this is like a systemic pattern. I dont know if that is answering your question. Another one. Im curious about, like a big part of it just as in the book which im halfway through, is youth and inexperience and how that plays into like just not going well. Im sort of curious, like in Previous Companies than previous areas you totally worked her way up to get to the top 50 think theres a world in which, like young people being in charge of a company or other entity could work . Is that just like a recipe for failure . Thats a great question, like could young people leave a Political Movement . [laughing] yeah. I dont think that age actually has much to do with it. I think that it is more to do with the values attached to that, like i think with text, technology moves quickly. The point of technology is to rid itself obsolete in many cases, its i think people are always excited about youth because you correlates with the newest thing when people are interested in technology. But i think that the industry also has a sort of a historical slant that if you were you aren politics or in a different industry you would probably want to do the research and you would want to grab it in some tradition. Obviously, we can get into different things. I think the youth is, people who can behave in certain ways who are 18 who its indistinguishable. We all know someone who is a millennial who acts like a baby boomer, but i think that people respond to their environment in a lot of ways. Its complicated. I dont think theres a at answer. I think tech accelerates its bad qualities for sure but that is more to do with the business side actually. Thats my guess. Lets go here. Can you talk about the time between when uncanny valley came up, like what changed either with your approach to writing and the stories or just world in general . So the book comes out of an essay i wrote for a magazine, a fictionalized essay. That started out as like the book review and sort it morphed into these anecdotes just my own life that it really wrote to entertain my friend dana. When it came out i really enjoyed writing it but didnt have a bigger project in mind. Ive been taking notes on how to approach it and how to approach my work life like in objective literary inquiry. Its just like this is my worklife and maybe one day ill write a book of short stories. That got a lot more attention than i thought it would. It was very surprising to me, a lot of people in tech read so that was when it started. Emails emails started, emailsm people in tech saying you articulate something that was unsettling to me, too. Anyway, it means a lot to me. I sort of figured id write about in like ten or 20 years, but maybe i running joke with friends. Youre going to write a novel about tech. No, probably not worthy of a novel. And then source started to put on the back burner and writing book reviews and a little bit about the Tech Industry not in a critical way but reflecting on the news. After the 2016 election i had this feeling what ive been experiencing was going to change. I i sort of had come been offerg under this assumption, the sane people would be there and saying values would be there and this was sort of inevitable, forever moment. Super articulate. And then after the election itself at actually things were going to change and something it ended and it felt more urgent to write about it. Because it seemed, i felt like i could no longer take for granted what was there. I think my own feeling about the industry started to shift. It also coincided with like my feelings about my job shifting. I was doing sort of like content moderation content policy at a time would a lot more right wing material resurfacing, like far right wing, far, far right wing. I just dont like the game sort of felt like it was over for me what i was like my work makes me feel better. I dont know if i believe in the end game, and i dont know if this tradeoff is worth it. Probably i should go to law school. But i just took to feel like i had aged out my particular situation, and we looked around and started to think where am i going with this . Whats the trajectory for someone like me . I had trouble with feeling good about my options, and its not that they were not attainable. I think i could have done anything, not to be arrogant, but i think this is an industry thats like if you believe and to try and you are a white woman with a College Degree from a good liberal arts university, you are rewarded for nothing. In some ways, you know. [laughing] anyway, i think my personal feeling shifted, the political conversation shifted and it felt urgent in a way that it really didnt anticipate. I should affect a one sentence answer for you, sorry. We will go here and then you afterwards. This one right here, right here. I was wondering if its a conscious decision for you . [inaudible] i was listening to women who had turned the others turned into novels. Was it a conscious decision for you . What were the other two books . The other one was the fear of Silicon Valley and other one was [inaudible] interesting. They both turned into novels. It was a thought, right, this is a litigious industry and im not [laughing] these are people who have a lot of wealth and power and they really dont like criticism. And they are not used to it either. I thought about writing it as a novel. My general feeling was nothing has happened to me here that i participated in that if i read fiction no one would believe me. I think the woman coming from a technical position and as a woman, that people would ignore it or discredit it or undermine it in some way. It was important to be to write it as nonfiction. It was important to me that it not be misread as satire because theres a lot of stuff thats quite funny but actually the industry, the book, its documentation, right . Its just say how things are enough people are and how they speak could be misread as satire, and i feel very strongly thats not on me. [laughing] so nonfiction felt like the move, and i wanted it to be a personal story, i didnt want it to be a reported piece because knowing my own strengths and staying in my own lane kind of things. But yeah, yeah. We are wow. Should do one, maybe two more. Ive been doing so many podcast im just ready to talk for an hour. Thats great. Just keep going. A lot of the book feels like really personal. Im kind of curious as you are recalling the stories, like what were some of the emotions . Were you angry when some of these, when you remembered some of these things, which is sad, happy or nostalgic . Thats an interesting question. It was a little sad. A very useful document or corpus for me was my email friends about my life in my 20s. This thing happen after work with this person i work with, what do you think this means . Should i i be worried about th . Should i be excited about this . This conversation happen over three drinks. And what about to become an executive . [laughing] so rereading that felt like i was rereading, i have very friends with whom i write long emails. Its like reading a diary. I felt like i was reading this record of my own optimism and excitement and enthusiasm for the industry, as it increasingly reading my own disillusionment and frustration and anger in a lot of ways. Especially writing the book in 20172018 i was very angry about things that were happening in the world, in the industry, with friends of mine. The book is from 20122016 and that was quite hard because i knew i was so close to it that he had to try to be detached, that detachment was like the best, the most emotionally honest for the longterm, that anger often clarifies it to some other positions, but would probably take a while for me to understand. Or an insight if not a physician. I guess i sort of like feel great affection and frustration with this past version of myself for buying in so hard and wanting some of those things. I dont know i think thats probably like anyone who writes personally who does research on themselves in this way. You have to treat it like a research project. I will say that it wasnt until he interviewed some former colleagues have got really, really mad here i think thats because of who i am which is like an ambivalent i potentially cowered person, that im constantly trying to give people the benefit of the doubt and even in this conversation ive been protecting people are protected by people who dont deserve it and havent earned it and who wouldnt do the same for me, not that house to be reciprocal. Im just constantly going to the mat for people in ways you dont have, havent proven any evidence they deserve it. Talking to other people but shared experiences or shared institutions and their experiences was enraging, in some cases. But again these are not my stories. User places i spent time and people i spent time with, but i hope at some point, i hope is in my journalistic work those are not necessarily the specific stories but this is the think i can highlight as a journalist. But i think that generally it was more of this sorting through emotional stuff of being in my 20s. [laughing] thats good. Lets get one last one. Way in the back right there. I dont know if we have to wait for the boom mic. Im wondering if you find more meaning in your work now as a journalist and you did in tech . If so, why . A very good question. I do. I think that, but the dont want to say thats like, not that journalism is a more meaningful career and work in two and being a project manager. For me i found work that he is like something that makes sense for me thats interesting and exciting to me. I think a lot of what was exciting in the first place about the Tech Industry that may be interested in being and staying as an employee, being and staying in the industry, thats still really interesting to me. I just have found a better way to engage with it which is writing about it. Its kind of like stay in your own lane kind of thing. This is actually what i potentially most useful, i hope, and thats meaningful to me. But i dont think that is like any sort of empirical value to one or the other. But yeah, i dont know, a personal question. I think thats good. Do you ever wish you were a project manager at google . [laughing] no offense. Just finding a place. I feel very lucky to to have fd a place that makes sense right now. I dont want to take it for granted. Thats very nice. Everyone, please give a big round of applause. [applause] shes going to be signing books. I dont know where the desk is. Thank you, guys for coming and listening. This was quite long. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] tonight on booktv started at eight eastern highlights from our in depth programs. Get close to a good book tonight. Tv, on cspan2. Cspan is roundtheclock coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic, and its all available on demand at cspan. 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