You are watching booktv on cspan2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. Booktv, television for serious readers. We are honored to come full circle hosting not only a local author but regular customer at the bookstore and uncover tech culture and Silicon Valley news, has appeared in the atlantic, wired antimagazine and other publications. Mike isaac is a Technology Reporter at the New York Times who won the award for distinguished business reporting and write about uber and other Silicon Valley giant it appears on cnbc and msnbc. The book signing will be at the back desk right there and appreciate it if you keep the line along the wall to the far right. I need to take a photo of you. I thought there would be 20 people here. All friends. A fireside chat. If this were a congressional hearing. Be on your cspan behavior. I am not going to curse tonight, or try not to. I was thinking and you were thinking we should probably start off with moving something. I dont know if you read any part of the book but it would be nice. Thank you for coming and those who are standing. For a frequent customer, a person who needs to go on a run here and stop. But yes, thank you for coming. I figured i would read a section dear to my heart which is about venture capitalists on twitter. Okay. Thank you for your service. Do you think you hate yourself . Coming on strong for intake session, i caught myself following a bunch of micro bloggings. It is a universal basic income and i couldnt look away. They were concerned about unlocked economic potential of the urban poor. As Vice President and Ocean Temperatures ticked toward uninhabited ability they were concerned ai, specifically the question of they were china would own it would bring about the third world war. They wanted to see automation and Artificial Intelligence jumpstart the renaissance, the machines would do the work so the rest of us, rendered useless, could focus on our art. They wanted to block grant Government Services or bunkers and new zealand to stop guns and peanut butter. I believe in a i and pottery classes. As soon as they were automated out of a job. They were prolific, they talked like nobody i knew. They talk their own books but most days talked ideas, how to ferment and apply microeconomic theories to complex social problems. The future of media, decline of high red, and the builders mindset. To have more things to talk about. With open markets, and continuous innovation, venture class cannot be relied upon for nuances of capitalism. They sniped about structural hypocrisy of criticizing capitalism from a smart phone as if defending capitalism was not grotesque. They saw the world through a kaleidoscope of startups, if you want to eliminate, should be outlawed starting your own company, with the accelerator. Every vocal anticapitalist person is an investor. It is like rome or athens or antiquity. Send your best scholars, learn from masters and meet the other most eminent people of your generation and return home with the knowledge and networks you need. That other people can see them. The venture capitalists were not above inspiration culture. It is nice the your mike, your laughter, beautiful, good for me. Sorry. The venture capitalists were not above inspiration culture, they were advising their followers to stay humble. Eat healthy they said, drink with, travel, meditate, work on your marriage, never give up. The priest the gospel of 80 hour walk weeks, whenever the integrated the idea of Work Life Balance as soft or antithetical to the determined necessary for startup success i wondered how many had an executive assistant, a personal assistant, both which i couldnt imagine making millions of dollars every year and then choosing to spend my time on social media. Is almost a pathos to their internet addiction. Just email each other. They do. They talk on whats apps. If the internet was good for anything wasnt a this . Transparency in action, access to the minds of industry elite. There is no better way to know which venture capitalist run their hands over the impact of identity politics on productivity your practicing life was going. How to know which members of the verdure venture class defended megalomaniac founders and harassment and perceived themselves as victims of digital models. How to do liberally amplify identities, ideologies and Investment Strategies of the people transforming society, people i was helping make rich. You can get there. So i am going to venture to say what they were talking about. I dont know how many have read it. And this is the beginning of your narrative. A wide i approach coming into tech, from publishing to tech and wondering what happened, what, from the beginning, sort of optimistic as they seem. How did you come into that . Wideeyed is a good description. The year is 2012, i am working in publishing, i realize people make money in their jobs, i think for a long time for a little while i bought it really hard and disbelieved it and wanted to believe it. Selfdelusion lasted a long time, or a game of solitaire, lasted a long time or Something Like that. The industry is funny to me. The way people speak and corporate fealty has always been amusing because it has to be funny otherwise it is terribly depressing. I didnt think about writing about it or skewing it in any critical way or criticizing a gently. I think i am i read the meanest part. My dad was like the venture capitalists dont get a break in your book. If anyone can take it, they are just middle men. Sorry for the one guy in the back. We are both openminded individuals who could listen to a different narrative. It was a structural position. A lot of the criticism that i hear a lot of time, new yorkers are coming in, sort of a critical approach to this. And how things work, to other industries, you were in publishing before. And spinal tap commentary. Absolutely. I think business is inherently interesting. Workplaces provide the stuff of literature. I dont know that i would have written a book about it, many have done so before. Many editorialists on an editorial system and goes through the trappings of what that is like. There is no future in that. Industries are different in ways that are is that i cant economic but each has a set of internal rules and norms and things you take for granted and social relationships you need to maintain certain professional ambitions. Like twitter. May be accept your career advancement, youre having dinner with on thursday. On twitter everyone is having dinner alone on twitter. I think, i feel the reason i wrote about tech, there hadnt been a ton of firstperson narratives, without previous eras. With entrylevel employee, what it is like people keep asking me things. What it is like to be a woman. How is that going . It wasnt like a triumphalist, how people fire your staff. There is a lot of literature about tech that reflects your own experience, theres a lot of literature, and the common experience that hasnt changed for 60 years. To focus on two years in Book Publishing, no one will buy it. We go from Book Publishing, the first starts, and and and they are brandon for better or worse, they bought into what they were selling. And you believe in the ideology. They can do go to whatever company, what youre trying to do and what you are trying to accomplish. The feeling being a Mission Driven before the real good stuff. Netflix for ebooks product, everyone was careful. The be reading apps for i wont iphone, library for a monthly fee. I read on the paris review blog this Company Raised 3 million. It is like it wasnt a serious aid. I got my Business News and placed a lot. For me, 3 million was like oh sorry, cspan, i was like this is the future, this is what the industry will be. I want to do that. I want to see a future for myself in books. A lot of money. A ton of money to build enough. For the venture capitalists, i am sure they are cringing. We dont know anything. I figured i would be the book expert. I wrote a lot of email. I know it is annoying that i have to keep asking what are back end is. I am a reader and you need someone like me on staff and you didnt but they were very kind about it. There is a company in San Francisco you should know about. I have been using this Analytic Software to see how people are using the apps, doing very minimal, Data Collection and people who make the software, fewer than 20 people, the next unicorn, or rocketship, you should be there. Rocketship i was like i want to be on a rocketship. Everyone in Book Publishing is like i think this could potentially make the list. It sounded good. It makes the Data Analytics product. It feels like a job. What do you get into whatever but the thing a lot of folks in new york or journalism or sign i, was the mission good for you . Yes. I was not a journalist at any point until last year. That skepticism, i wasnt reading about the Tech Industry, and what this billionaire wears, the same thing he wears every way. I think we have not talked a lot about Book Publishing but in the issue where there was no momentum everything was a dead end, a 20 Person Company and to matter, to feel useful, i was contributing in any way that kept the momentum going. The genius was here to build infrastructure. It was less about the mission of the company than the people of working on something with a small group of people, it was working and that seems improbable you would have an organization, a 24, 25yearold, it keeps Getting Better and better. And the momentum, if this was going to make the world a better place, i personally find the product interesting and can sort of justified as an extension of my sociology bachelors degree from 6 years ago. I dont think it is like Data Collection storage analysis unbeknownst to the user, god knows where it goes, that is making the world better, this is fundamentally interesting and if this is education, this is an industry that emphasizes individual. Individually quite useful and great in a way that was tied to the collective effort but also was distracting enough, perhaps Data Collection is part of a broader economy. We werent having these conversations. We get into it is not it is working for your customers. Your helping us optimize to achieve, with monetization event and everyone is stoked and you make money when they make money. Intricacies the feedback, this thing you helped make, making us make money. That is great and feels great that let me tell you how to fix it. To be like i can fix your problem. Never fix anyones problem in any way. Theres a lot of intoxicating cultural stuff. There is a lot in there. The Customer Support versus p. M. S, i am wondering, we can feel good about your position in that company. I always heard stories about the inch culture so we go there or dont value x enough. When someone is like they have the higher freedom of the pecking order. Like the dichotomy is very interesting and being told you are not technical enough or to show more credentials than someone else in your role, the dichotomy is used as a cover of perpetuation of certain inequities or bias. It is a racialized dichotomy. I think this idea that engineering skills are more valuable has to do with the market but having been in the position of trying to hire people for nontechnical jobs and potentially harder for certain things like to find someone who can write fluently about data was for me harder than it was for engineers to find midlevel engineer. It is, engineering skills are the primary focus. A lot of Company Perks are toward educating those employees. Obviously you cant have a product without it but without those people it does lead to internal hierarchy that can leave a lot of people feeling like secondclass citizens. I mention race and gender because it is baked into that hierarchy and influence the way things run internally. That is what i am getting at. Im wondering kind of like appreciate you laying that out. It is coming to bear, the questions around the most prized position of the company, you tell me, fundamental assumptions that are being questions in the wake of whatever, questioning. What is concerning to me as conflation of what is not unique but american capitalism but amplified in the valley. This idea that your personal worth is directly correlated to your economic output or Economic Contribution or economic value, your value in the marketplace. There is something morally superior about being an engineer or having what is assumed to be a certain mindset or value system that has these it resonates in different ways, this like at least a certain hierarchy in companies but also leads to a mindset oriented toward optimizing toward the bottom line or something, not a humane approach to life or leadership organization. Got in the way of the microphone. The leadership thing, we get past your first start up, go to your next startup, they are all referenced. And challenging or interesting, what im describing, it seems archetypical of a lot of the issues one might have. Do they seem an avatar for problems in leadership in tech or a flawed human being. How do you see this guy . The book late. The ceo of the company, 24 when i joined the company. Obviously we are experienced miles beyond him and i think it is incredibly hard to run the company full of adults many of whom have dependents or debt or whatever. I do not envy anyone in that position. You will be selected for the position of your lucky but i have a lot of sympathy for someone who is growing up at the same time they are learning to be a ceo. I think that the reason i dont Name Companies or executives, there are a few of them but one of them is i feel the behavior i saw institutionally was a result of a structural position rather than an individual failure but it feels exculpatory narrative or framework. She doesnt name any of the companies or people. It is very googleable. Not to because he or offer a puzzle for people to solve although i am sure it is fun. But more than a suggestion toward what i think is common leadership style, more about the incentive of the industry. I told this anecdote at another i was Walking Around with my own book like an American Girl doll with my book and tying my anecdotes. So it was in new york someone came up to me after reading and read my book and mentioned the scene in which i talk about how early members of my team were brought to a Conference Room and the manager asked us who are the 5 smartest people you know, write their names down, we all did this exercise and if you look at your list, why dont they work here . Abraham lincoln. Why would they work here . So many interesting things to do in the world, why would my friends in graduate school, they probably would make their way to tech, why would these people who are smart and talented and interested in other things work at this analytics company. Im here because i dont know what my purposes in life and im trying to figure that out that have a salary and Health Insurance. This idea, sort of has economic value but this is the thing it was, do you think that hubers is endemic to how this works or required this is the anecdote i am telling you about. I am behaving as though it is a one line. The same happened in my company. Another woman in San Francisco texted me, this was like deja vu, it was on a blog post. I was asked to write the names of the people i know what a Different Company so i feel there is a thing that happens in this culture that has to do with the intellectual culture that i would call antiintellectual. Theres more about that in the book too. It has to do more with people read business advice, never in a company before, have a ton of money and accountability to their investors, 10 of responsibility to their employees and are trying to figure out how to lead to they read a blog post. This is how you scale hiring and get good people for your core team that will set the tone for your rest of your company, corralling people into a Conference Room, and push them to recruit them, i tried so hard to recruit people who were or were not the smallest people i knew. You could speak to this as well. Your excellent book length investigation of uber. It is called superpump by mike isaac. It is at the bookstore and he will be signing it afterward. The business incentive, those are shaped by the incentives interests of venture capital. We have prioritization, coupled with libertarian spirit of industry that has been incubating for 25, 30, 40 years and 2020, longer, 50 years. You kind of get a weird cultural product that doesnt value expertise over consideration and research, but in a rate of i dont know what i am talking about. It is fair to say there are parts like really appreciated. A lot of times, journalists in the valley, a lot of tech folks think tech is doing well for a while and questioning that is dangerous sometimes. For the benefit of that, parts that you appreciated and took away from timing tech. There is. This is like the heart of the book is ambivalence. A lot i appreciated about working in tech. I happen to be the right age and the right year earnings to be an ideal employee in a certain way. It is four years ago when it mattered. Having moved here not knowing anyone from a different city, trying to find meaning and run with it. And a, roderick, and people need to have autonomy, people having autonomy. There seemed to be some potential, it replicates, and it was exciting to me. There is one more thing i really did enjoy about startup culture. It is very earnest, someone who is vacillating between detached mockery and painful earnestness. Dont know if you can relate. They might be wrong but i genuinely believe people in texas think they are doing good for the world. I think that they believe it and i trust them when they say it and what is missing, the problems are systemic. I would be curious what you think given your reporting on uber. I dont know if you are legally allowed to answer this question. Moved to the next what if you want to but do you feel i heard people say uber couldnt exist if it didnt have this crazy culture. My question is should it exist . That culture shouldnt exist that if you dont have that culture maybe that is fine. Can any of you do you feel it is stressed do you see structural information for his behavior with incentives of the Business Model of the industry, could be forgiving of people. Boil down how this works, getting investment in your company, you have to hit the next level or whatever that is whether it is users or revenue or something. For most companies it gets desperate so doing things that i dont know. What a lot of this works, there is justification, the people who incumbents, protected in ways that are not necessarily fair. I am not saying this is wrong, reasons for doing all this stuff. Also to go back on my own argument, people in the same structural position are not ass holes. Not telling anyone specific that is the other question. Do you have to be a jerk to do well in this industry . I dont know. Seems unfair to answer that. Thinking thinking about you might have heard the term tech . The moment we are in, the phenomenon and of may be it is not as bad, what some might call a trough of disillusionment. We are all eating from the trough of disillusionment. That is me when i get home. You can wallow in this gnarly. Go for a long time and it is important too. Are we just going to say tech is bad for a very long time . Where are we going . Tell me the future. This is great leverage, my career as a futurist. What if i worked for google and said i was the new just looking for a griddle. I think tech, potentially gentler narrative, not that tech is bad but tech is boring and unimaginative. What i mean by that is there could be so much more. Forgive me, the tools are in place for a more creative and vibrant industry. More exploratory. It is not big enough. Criticism awareness. I think some companies arent bad and they are doing bad things, it is still relatively young, the generation of industry is rooted in the past, dont want to say it is exceptional in any way but got to work with what youve got. There is a lot we havent tried with they are related to things like private affection privatization, centralization, reliance on ad networks that happens when everything is hyper customized, the scale that leads to a product like spotify. Is everything okay. I am sorry. And dont know what comes next. We have companies for whom the highest ambition is to be a monopoly. I dont think that serves society. I also feel it is unimaginative. A lot is pinnacle and that has to do with baked in spirit of circumvention and i am thinking i dont mean to pick this out. I was reading something earlier. Sorry. I am choosing a handful here. All the ridesharing apps, someone who is constantly running late, i would prefer to be taking Public Transportation but do these products circumvent civic participation or civic institutions, do they argument them like last mile ridership. It marketed itself as an alternative to College Degree and part of that rationale is you can do a job quickly that pays extremely well, sort of an income jump spectacle, useful, valuable but also a way to avoid student debt one might incur from getting a degree in english. In english degree. My nightmare, i have an english degree, i do not have an english degree, a chip on my shoulder but rather, the crisis here is we make it so hard to live you need to orient your entire life, your education becomes instrumental to get you a job. That is a social failure. That is not what education should be in a functional enriched society. You have a student debt crisis, totally legitimate you would want, a person would want to launch himself in a different career track to pay off their debt. When your outside, its just part of what i think solutions for people in the Public Sector are the incumbent or whatever, its stuck in what it is. Maybe they are just content and being the status quo. Whats exciting is the idea that you can break that. You have a newspaper. [laughter] but like there are some things that are there for a reason, i think. Im not trying to defend the dmv website. [laughter] where you are like who knows, ill just show up in three months. [laughter] but i do think some things there better experienced on a spiritual level. Over time, its reliant on, i guessed the earlier question about texas, publishing, i feel like im becoming a windup doll, that something you can continue, a viable product, ship a patch or something, but you actually want your book, when your book is done, its done. The reason it takes so long and theres a reason you have to copy editors go through and you send it to friends and you have an editor and multiple eyes in the product. When it done, its the best and you dont want to rush that. For the sake of quality. I guess this is my feverish defense of the book in the bookstore but the values of the industry and our culture doesnt necessarily value from this or smallscale small business. Look at your cities. Look around. Its endemic. An amplification of social moment. So there are a lot of people here who would like to ask you some questions. Maybe start over here, i asked a few questions my friend . Mainly mind. Were you leery of why are all tech people like that . [laughter] not all tech people. [laughter] too much time on the internet. [laughter] i have a section in the book, edm when i like need to stay awake and cant drink any more caffeine or if im like pumped before [laughter] i wrote my book on edm and you can tell the section, when i was blasting it. Its really motivating. I think the edm is, i think is an energy, i think it can be made quickly, i dont know. Why do you think everyone loves that . Can we ask this . Someone in the audience . Its very expensive. Its hard to run a practice business, can you imagine doing a drug test much easier than on a computer. I feel like thats happening all over but edm exploded in like 2008 and into 2007. On signs with census. [laughter] arnold. An amazing profile in new york, probably wrong but whatever its by, ive never said that out loud [laughter] it explains that subculture, someone who has never been to a medium concert they couldnt stand that type of concert. [laughter] anyway. I recommend reading that. Another question from my friend. What will it take to get tech ceos to question the solutions and philosophies under these areas, meeting tech will be the solutions to some of those problems. The solution to the problems facebook has is fixing things in a different way. I have solutions for the problems he created. Right but i think even if i dont beat up on them, the larger thing is like the problems of what we are doing, the underlying of whats not true. Im wondering. I dont know. If i knew what could change their minds, i would be so wealthy. Unprecedented problems to deal with. I think that for me to question is like okay, lets assume facebook exists and will continue to exist and Mark Zuckerberg will continue with the company. What does it mean for facebook to ethically responsibly deal with that and so for me, from my perspective, a question about content moderation and just because you can upload a video doesnt mean you should be able to. What would it mean to straddle user generation content . What would it mean if you have your moderators fulltime staff with fulltime benefits, Mental Health benefits, if necessary, if you pay them a salary and invested in research to repercussions of this, the experts in all of your regional experts for all of the places like facebook exist and whatever, if you are taking those steps, for facebook to invest in a solution to itself, i think with mean a collapse of facebook. For the consumer from forget about the business side but to disclose participating in the options for Data Retention and whose data was shared with, i suspect people care and they would also care that this could lead to facebook as a business. Youll probably get a sort of nice social platform where people care. I think it would be, it would mean the collapse as a functional entity. In terms of changing the rules, this mindset to question that comes with that. To me, for whom . And at what cost . But i think theres no incentive for people to behave differently. Theres more incentive for Mark Zuckerberg to say it would be great if i spent all of my money on making our contractors fulltime. So the question becomes, when it still exists, i think there are incredibly minimal regulations. Thank you have the collective people inside these companies who might say we dont want to work on something for we want to push whatever policy. They want their workers to organize in any way so that becomes a question of okay, what is a reason they want to schedule thought . Elite theres a visa or Health Insurance or paying them salaries, whatever. I just think that these are all bigger questions. Tell your friend i have no idea. Does anyone have any questions . I would love to hear i like to hear your response, i feel like it creates a bridge and the story and then youve got those who reach out to you in a way of understanding and of you that you were not expecting . My people ive worked with or just people in general . A lot of people have reached out and thats been in interesting and exciting thing for me. Especially people who work in the industry. I think because of the observation and personal ive heard from people who nothing has surprised me exactly and im surprised, i think whenever you write about something people have opinions about, you will get people saying this is political or to political, too much personal or not enough personal strength. I think i think the thing that surprises me when people reach out, i have the same exact situation in a Different Company in a totally different year, that to me is sort of telling me that these are systemic issues but its a personal book, you sort of want to believe this isnt happening to you and it can be devastating when its a systemic pattern. Its a big part of the book, how that plays into not going well. Im curious in Previous Companies and arrows, you have worked your way up to the top and do you think theres a world in which young people being in charge of a company or an enti entity, particularly bad at tech or is that just failure . Thats a great question. Could a young people lead a Political Movement . [laughter] i dont think age has much to do with it. I think it has more to do with the values attached to that. Technology moves quickly. The point is to render itself obsolete in many cases. People are excited with the newest things that people are interested in. I think the industry also has a historical way that if you were working in politics or in another industry, you probably want to do the research and grounded in some tradition, i think its sort of for different reasons, and site institutional in a way. I think the use, people can behave in certain ways who are 18 who are indistinguishable we all know someone was a millennial who acts like a baby boomer but i think that people respond to their environment and a lot of waste so its complicated. I dont think theres one answer. It accelerates and amplifies those qualities for sure but the business side of it. Talk about the times [inaudible] what changed their approach to writing or the world in general. The book comes out in the fictionalized essay, thats a book review and morphed into these antidotes for my own life that i love to entertain my friend, dana and when it came out, i was just writing it and had a bigger project in mind, how to approach my work life ethic, just like cool, this is my work life. So that got a lot more attention than i thought it would. A lot of people want to talk about so that was gratifying. These emails started, emails from people texting something thats unsettling to me, to and it meant a lot to me. I figured i would write about it in ten or 20 years that maybe it was a running joke writing about novel about tech but then i just put on the back burner in writing book reviews in about Tech Industry and critical way but just reflecting on the news then after the 2016 election, i had a feeling when i had been experiencing was going to change, i had this assumption that this is what tech was and it will continue forever. Super ridiculous. Then after the election, it felt that things were going to change. It felt more urgent to write about it. I felt like i could no longer take for granted what was there. I think my own feeling about the industry started to shift. Was my feelings about my job shifting, i was doing sort of like content moderation and policy in a time when a lot more like right wing, far right wing was doing that. I sort of felt like it was over for me but my work, i dont know where its going. I dont know where the endgame was. I dont know, probably i should go to law school. [laughter] but it started to feel like i had aged out of my particular situation and when i looked around and started to think of where am i going with this, whats the trajectory for someone like me . I had trouble feeling good about my options. Its not that they werent obtainable, not to be arrogant but i think its just an industry that if you believe and try and you are a white woman with a College Degree at a university, you are rewarded for nothing. [laughter] in someplace. In some ways. I think my personal feelings shifted the political conversation shifted and it felt urgent in a way that i didnt anticipate. Should have had one [laughter] someone right here. I was wondering if was a decision [inaudible] [inaudible question] theres a thought. [laughter] they dont like criticism and theyre not used to it. My general feeling was things happened to me here that i participated in that if i had written that, a woman coming from a technical position, that people would ignore it or discredit or undermine it in some way. It is important to write ficti fiction, its important to me that it not be misread because theres a lot of the industry, its documentation. Just saying how things are and how people are and how they speak could be satire and i feel strongly about that. [laughter] nonfiction felt like the move and i wanted it to be a personal story, a reported piece because in my own strength, its that kind of thing. But yeah. We should do one, two more. Im just ready to talk for an hour. Great, keep going. Im curious your calling, the stories, what were some of the emotions, were you angry . Or happy or nostalgic . Interesting question. I was a little sad. Purpose for me was my email, this thing happened afterwards, a person i worked with, should i be worried about this . Should i be excited . This conversation happened over three drinks. My about to become the executive . [laughter] so it felt like i was reading this i have Close Friends with whom i write with, its like reading a diary. I felt like i was reading my own optimism and excitement and enthusiasm for the industry and increasingly reading my own disillusionment and anger in a lot of ways, i think in 2017 2018, is very angry about things happening in the world and the industry, friends of mine and the book is from 2016, it was quite hard because i knew that i had to try to invest in the emotionally honest for the longterm that anger often clarifies other positions that would probably take a while for me to understand so i guess i feel great affection and frustration in this past version of myself, i dont know, i think thats probably anyone who does research on themselves in this way, treated like a research project. I will say that it wasnt until i interviewed former colleagues and i think thats because of who i am, potentially cowardly person. Im possibly trying to get people the benefit of the doubt and protecting those people who dont deserve it did havent earned it. People in ways who havent proven evidence that they deserve that but talking to people about shared institutions and their experiences was enraging in some cases and these are my stories, these are people i spent time with but i hope at some time, my hope is that my journalistic work, not necessarily these specific stories but this is the thing as a journalist but i think generally it was more of this sorting through the emotional stuff, being in my 20s. [laughter] one last one. In the back right there. Yes. Im wondering if you find more meaning in your work now as a journalist than you did in tech. If so, why . I do. I think i dont want to say thats like not that journalism is a more meaningful career than working in tech, i think for me, i have found work that feels like something that makes sense for me. Its interesting and exciting to me, i think a lot of what was exciting in the first place in the Tech Industry that made me being and saying being and staying in the industry, its still fully interesting to me so my, i have just found a better way to engage with it which is writing about it. I think its kind of state in your mind kind of thing. This is one potentially whats useful and i hope, thats meaningful to me. But i dont think theres any sort of empirical value to one or the other. I dont know. I think thats good. You ever wish you were . [laughter] [inaudible] i feel very lucky to have found a place that makes sense right now. I dont want to take it for granted. Thats very nice. [inaudible] [applause] [applause] this was quite long. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] heres a look at some authors who greatly recently appeared or will be appearing soon on book tvs afterwards. Weekly Author Interview program that includes bestselling nonfiction books and guest interviews. The Research Institute offered her thoughts on healthcare reform. Coming up, Washington Times columnist thomas will weigh in on whether the United States will remain a superpower. This weekend on afterwards, pulitzer prizewinning journalist, Nicholas Kristof and sheryl discuss issues facing the working class in rural america. For those of us in the upper middle classed who are very well educated, at least graduated from high school, some college, we have a fairly wide path ahead of us. If we stall, we pick ourselves up but the small towns around america in rural america, people are walking on a tight rope. One risk and they fall. Wheres their safety net . Afterwards airs saturdays at 10 00 p. M. And sundays 9 00 p. M. Eastern and pacific on book tv on cspan2. All previous afterwards are available as a podcast. To watch online at booktv. Org. Next on book tv, Samuel Willie discuss the origins of online disinformation. The national africanamerican read and. An event that promotes literacy during black history month. Later, author christopher looks back at the millions of people in florida in the 19th 40s. It all starts now on book tv. I would like to welcome you all, we are thrilled to have Samuel Woolley with us here tonight. Celebrating a very important new book called the reality game. How the next wave of technology will break the truth. Its from our friends at Public Affairs books, doctor woolley is a writer and researcher specializing in the study of a. I. , emergent technology, politics, persuasion and social media. Hes an assistant professor in the school of journalism and program director