The most extraordinary thing about Disrupted

It has been about six months since Disrupted was published. This has been a really amazing and interesting experience. For one thing, the book has sold well. It made the best-seller lists and now is in its sixth printing. (I like to say it’s the first book I’ve ever written that someone has actually bought.) We’ve sold rights in a bunch of countries around the world. The U.K. edition came out a couple weeks ago. Here in the U.S. there will be a paperback edition coming out early next year. That stuff is gratifying. But there’s another thing that nobody knows about, and it is ultimately far more satisfying than any good review or positive sales report. It’s that, even now, months after the book came out, I still receive email every day from people telling me how the book resonated with them, so much so that they took the time to track down my website, get my email address, and write me a note.

These aren’t fan letters. These are people who feel compelled to tell me their stories. Some just send a quick “thank you” for writing the book, but a lot of them write long letters and really pour their hearts out. So many people have gone through something similar to what I did: getting laid off in mid-career and struggling to start over; experiencing prejudice based on their age, or race, or gender; working in a kooky startup culture for clueless managers who don’t know what they’re doing; or having to deal with an abusive boss. Some people are still in those jobs and are writing to kvetch about their situation. Those are the lucky ones. A lot of letters come from people who have been pushed out of the workforce and can’t get back in.

There’s the woman who got fired from a tech startup in San Francisco when she was five months pregnant, probably because she was five months pregnant. There are women who have been sexually assaulted or harassed by a tech CEO and don’t dare to complain because they feared the publicity would hurt their career. There’s the black entrepreneur who shows up at a VC firm looking for funding and sees, yet again, the lights go out in the eyes of the white VCs when they see him in person. Over and over I’ve heard the story of the gray-haired worker who has the perfect resume and does great on the phone interview, but then shows up for the in-person interview and the twenty-something hiring bro does a double take and says, “Oh I just remembered there’s a meeting I’m supposed to be in, so we’ll have to reschedule.”

Some letters are heartbreaking. And every day more arrive. People tell me my book cheered them up a little bit, and let them know that they’re not alone. But it’s terrible to think that so many people are suffering. The fact that this quiet epidemic is happening during a time when there is so much innovation, and excitement, and energy — when the headlines, especially from Silicon Valley, are filled with stories of a Golden Age and unicorns and rising valuations and the Great Tech Boom — well, the contrast is striking. It’s like there’s a great, wonderful, shiny show taking place over there on a big, bright, well-lighted stage, but then off to the side, hidden in the shadows, are millions of people who aren’t allowed to attend the show or participate in it, or who were in it once but got pushed out into the darkness.

Those are the people I hear from. There are more of them than you would imagine.

Also, this isn’t all gray-haired people. I get a lot of letters from people in their twenties who have already had bad work experiences at startups, or who look around at the way work is structured today and see the game rigged against them. They’ve been taken in by charlatans who gave them beer pong and foosball but put them to work in digital sweatshops. Now they’re disillusioned. They worry about their future.

In the past six months I’ve become a kind of unofficial spokesperson for angry olds — the “Gray Panthers,” I like to call us. My book events in the Bay Area were packed, mostly with people of a certain age (40 plus) who have been “aged out” of the workforce. Reporters writing about age bias, especially in tech, usually seek me out for a comment. This week Caroline Fairchild, a reporter at LinkedIn, did a whole story about me: “No one in tech will admit they’re old.”

Talking about age bias has caused me to think more about diversity in general. I’ve met some really interesting fellow travelers and have started thinking about what we might do to make things better, to get companies (in tech and elsewhere, but especially in tech) to “think different” about how they recruit and hire and manage. Just writing about diversity and talking about diversity doesn’t seem like enough. But I’m not sure what comes next.

I try to write back to everyone who writes me a letter. Sometimes this begins a correspondence that goes on for a while, and I make new friends. I’m a little behind right now, but I’m trying to catch up with the email. Also, some letters slip through and I just forget to write back. If that happened to your letter, I’m sorry. I do my best.

A few days ago someone asked me if I consider the book a success. (My sense was that he didn’t.) I do, but not because of sales figures or reviews. It’s because every day I open up my email and find these letters. It’s a very personal thing, something I experience by myself, alone in my office. Writing can be lonely. These letters make it less so. Part of why the letters cheer me up is they make me realize that I’m not alone, either. The letters come from all over the world, from all kinds of people. It has been an extraordinary experience. It’s the best thing about writing the book.