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Abolish Silicon Valley: How to Liberate Technology from Capitalism
Former insider turned critic Wendy Liu busts the myths of the tech industry, and offers a galvanising argument for why and how we must reclaim technology's potential for the public good.
Innovation. Meritocracy. The possibility of overnight success. What's not to love about Silicon Valley?
These days, it's hard to be unambiguously optimistic about the growth-at-all-costs ethos of the tech industry. Public opinion is souring in the wake of revelations about Cambridge Analytica, Theranos, and the workplace conditions of Amazon warehouse workers or Uber. We're starting to see the cracks in the edifice, as we realise that the wealth that the tech industry is so good at creating is neither sustainable nor always desirable.
Abolish Silicon Valley is both a heartfelt personal story about the wasteful inequality and unsubstantiated lies of Silicon Valley, and a rallying call to engage in the radical politics needed to upend the status quo. Going beyond the idiosyncrasies of the individual founders and companies that characterise the industry today, Liu delves into the structural factors of the economy that led to Silicon Valley in its current form, and links them to the economy at large. Ultimately, she proposes a more radical way of developing technology, where innovation is conducted for the benefit of society at large, and not merely to enrich a select few.
Innovation. Meritocracy. The possibility of overnight success. What's not to love about Silicon Valley?
These days, it's hard to be unambiguously optimistic about the growth-at-all-costs ethos of the tech industry. Public opinion is souring in the wake of revelations about Cambridge Analytica, Theranos, and the workplace conditions of Amazon warehouse workers or Uber. We're starting to see the cracks in the edifice, as we realise that the wealth that the tech industry is so good at creating is neither sustainable nor always desirable.
Abolish Silicon Valley is both a heartfelt personal story about the wasteful inequality and unsubstantiated lies of Silicon Valley, and a rallying call to engage in the radical politics needed to upend the status quo. Going beyond the idiosyncrasies of the individual founders and companies that characterise the industry today, Liu delves into the structural factors of the economy that led to Silicon Valley in its current form, and links them to the economy at large. Ultimately, she proposes a more radical way of developing technology, where innovation is conducted for the benefit of society at large, and not merely to enrich a select few.
244 pages, Paperback
First published March 23, 2020
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May 14, 2020
Review also posted on Medium.
You Can’t Abolish Silicon Valley by Appropriating Activism
Let’s start with the book’s title. I take issue with both the title and subtitle.
First, with Liu’s appropriation of the term “abolition,” a word commonly associated with the movement to end slavery. Abolish Silicon Valley (ASV) draws readers in with this connection, but in its final chapters, Liu reveals that she is calling “only somewhat jokingly” for Silicon Valley’s abolition, belittling the original use of the term (244, all pages from ebook version). Later, she says that the title ASV “began as a Twitter joke” (292)
Second, the subtitle claims that it will show the reader how to “liberate” technology from capitalism, a term commonly associated with social movements. The title serves as an incendiary bait-and-switch. Instead of laying out the framework for such a movement, Liu spends the first 75% of the book explaining her individual journey through the tech world in memoir form. Rather than focusing on the vague notion of capitalism as a target in her title and introduction, Liu needed to center the people, the workers.
Moving on to the memoir portion, many pages of which had me laughing in disbelief. Was it supposed to be satirical?
The first chapter, titled “No Girls on the Internet,” is the first of many ways that Liu re-asserts common stereotypes against women in tech. When Liu first starts to code at 12, she observes the numerous casual references to women’s lack of aptitude for programming and jokes about women’s lower place in society, but her conclusion is that she “would simply get used to it” (25). She pretended to be a boy in online discussion forums to avoid potential harassment. When applying to colleges, Liu picked her major with gender concerns at the top of her mind (30). I thought this meant that she wanted to choose a program with solid gender representation. What Liu actually sought was “the degree with the lowest female enrollment,” which she viewed as a “sign of intellectual rigor,” while she scorned anything female-dominated as “a scholastic consolation prize for those not smart enough for STEM” (30). She applied to a school that she otherwise didn’t want to attend, “solely because of its severely skewed gender ratio” (30). Later in the book, when Liu enters a tech company’s office and sees equal gender distribution, her first thought is that the diversity has “been stage-managed” (183).
Liu never addresses the internalized sexism of her earlier years. Yes, she gives #MeToo and the sexual harassment protests at Google a sentence or two each, but besides this, Liu does not discuss how gender impacts the experience of every woman in the field. Instead, Liu espouses the views of three controversial male figures in tech: Paul Graham, Elon Musk, and Peter Thiel. While Liu may do this to make the book more accessible, its impact is to potentially alienate half of her readership. I’ve never seen a woman in tech refer to other women in this way, repeatedly, without clear acknowledgement of why these stereotypes are problematic.
When browsing Goodreads reviews for ASV, I noticed a male reader recommending that people read Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley for a real look into SIlicon Valley. In a meticulous 2019 blog post, engineer Chip Huyen exposed the author Antonio Martinez’ deeply flawed perceptions of women in his workplace. After re-reading Huyen’s post, I saw many similarities between Martinez’ and Liu’s descriptions of women in tech.
Liu continues to put distance between herself and the groups in which she could gain the most support when she describes her failed startup venture. After her team’s initial venture failed to gain traction, the group brainstormed new directions. Several of Liu’s ideas involved automating away jobs from the working class and keeping cost savings for themselves (185).
On one page, Liu claims to want to do something meaningful for technology. On the next:
“As I watched the employee assembling my requested ingredients into a bowl, I pictured a machine resembling a soda fountain in her place. A smooth, frictionless self-serve system for combining ingredients, with ordering and payment handled through a mobile app that required minimal input from workers. Humans were expensive, requiring minimum wage, sick days, lunch breaks; sometimes they misheard what the customer asked for. Humanity was messy. Much better to have a machine of gleaming steel managed through an unambiguous codebase” (161).
When their team doesn’t go with this idea, she concludes: “I would have to settle for the subpar status quo where people who weren’t engineers were able to survive under capitalism” (162).
I reread this passage several times. Even if these statements reflected Liu’s past views, who wants to be called subpar to a machine?
Liu’s problematic descriptions of women and the working-class people supporting Silicon Valley’s gig economy make me question Liu’s intended audience with this book. Whose favor is she trying to gain? How does Liu expect to create solidarity in a worker’s movement (286) when she spends 75% of her book making subtle (sometimes) digs at the movements’ key players? If I had given up at this point, this book would have read like a Chaos Monkeys copycat.
When Liu realizes the connection between Silicon Valley’s decades-long problems of inequality and the structural issues at the roots of capitalism, I took a deep breath and powered on.
Only in the final chapter does Liu lay out her vision for a more ideal Silicon Valley, for the people. Yet, her solutions lack meat and practicality. These 20 pages, marketed to be the book’s entire focus, are greased with fatty “shoulds” and no “hows.” They read like the scribbled Post-It notes of an undergraduate student trying to “ideate” the solution to global hunger.
Yes, I agree with Liu’s suggestions to give users more say in the products they use, to break up tech monopolies, to raise the minimum wage and give contracted workers unemployment benefits and healthcare. Many of us do.
But what Liu’s brief sketches of a future Silicon Valley fail to accurately convey is the huge amount of work undertaken by tens of thousands of people across the country to make these demands common points of discussion. The voices of this growing movement are nowhere to be found. Liu sprinkles in a few wistful references to United Kingdom policy (271, 278, 281), but fails to describe current state-government-led lawsuits to classify ridesharing drivers as full employees, mounting protests by contract workers at companies such as Amazon and Instacart, progressive organizations devoted to combating gentrification and the Bay’s ever-growing housing crisis. She dismisses labor unions as being “in steep decline,” ignoring headlines in the last few years highlighting successful movements to unionize and the recent growth in the progressive movement (223).
What are actionable ways tech workers can contribute to this movement while recognizing their privilege? Organizations to join, politicians and nonprofits to support, protests to publicize and attend? We must give voice to the people at the root of this movement instead of stealing their microphones away.
In the book’s prologue, Liu sets out to disrupt Silicon Valley, the industry that typically does the disrupting (21). Liu’s plan: to disrupt activism, by neglecting years of existing work and repackaging well-known remedies to well-known problems in a shiny new box called patronization.
You Can’t Abolish Silicon Valley by Appropriating Activism
Let’s start with the book’s title. I take issue with both the title and subtitle.
First, with Liu’s appropriation of the term “abolition,” a word commonly associated with the movement to end slavery. Abolish Silicon Valley (ASV) draws readers in with this connection, but in its final chapters, Liu reveals that she is calling “only somewhat jokingly” for Silicon Valley’s abolition, belittling the original use of the term (244, all pages from ebook version). Later, she says that the title ASV “began as a Twitter joke” (292)
Second, the subtitle claims that it will show the reader how to “liberate” technology from capitalism, a term commonly associated with social movements. The title serves as an incendiary bait-and-switch. Instead of laying out the framework for such a movement, Liu spends the first 75% of the book explaining her individual journey through the tech world in memoir form. Rather than focusing on the vague notion of capitalism as a target in her title and introduction, Liu needed to center the people, the workers.
Moving on to the memoir portion, many pages of which had me laughing in disbelief. Was it supposed to be satirical?
The first chapter, titled “No Girls on the Internet,” is the first of many ways that Liu re-asserts common stereotypes against women in tech. When Liu first starts to code at 12, she observes the numerous casual references to women’s lack of aptitude for programming and jokes about women’s lower place in society, but her conclusion is that she “would simply get used to it” (25). She pretended to be a boy in online discussion forums to avoid potential harassment. When applying to colleges, Liu picked her major with gender concerns at the top of her mind (30). I thought this meant that she wanted to choose a program with solid gender representation. What Liu actually sought was “the degree with the lowest female enrollment,” which she viewed as a “sign of intellectual rigor,” while she scorned anything female-dominated as “a scholastic consolation prize for those not smart enough for STEM” (30). She applied to a school that she otherwise didn’t want to attend, “solely because of its severely skewed gender ratio” (30). Later in the book, when Liu enters a tech company’s office and sees equal gender distribution, her first thought is that the diversity has “been stage-managed” (183).
Liu never addresses the internalized sexism of her earlier years. Yes, she gives #MeToo and the sexual harassment protests at Google a sentence or two each, but besides this, Liu does not discuss how gender impacts the experience of every woman in the field. Instead, Liu espouses the views of three controversial male figures in tech: Paul Graham, Elon Musk, and Peter Thiel. While Liu may do this to make the book more accessible, its impact is to potentially alienate half of her readership. I’ve never seen a woman in tech refer to other women in this way, repeatedly, without clear acknowledgement of why these stereotypes are problematic.
When browsing Goodreads reviews for ASV, I noticed a male reader recommending that people read Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley for a real look into SIlicon Valley. In a meticulous 2019 blog post, engineer Chip Huyen exposed the author Antonio Martinez’ deeply flawed perceptions of women in his workplace. After re-reading Huyen’s post, I saw many similarities between Martinez’ and Liu’s descriptions of women in tech.
Liu continues to put distance between herself and the groups in which she could gain the most support when she describes her failed startup venture. After her team’s initial venture failed to gain traction, the group brainstormed new directions. Several of Liu’s ideas involved automating away jobs from the working class and keeping cost savings for themselves (185).
On one page, Liu claims to want to do something meaningful for technology. On the next:
“As I watched the employee assembling my requested ingredients into a bowl, I pictured a machine resembling a soda fountain in her place. A smooth, frictionless self-serve system for combining ingredients, with ordering and payment handled through a mobile app that required minimal input from workers. Humans were expensive, requiring minimum wage, sick days, lunch breaks; sometimes they misheard what the customer asked for. Humanity was messy. Much better to have a machine of gleaming steel managed through an unambiguous codebase” (161).
When their team doesn’t go with this idea, she concludes: “I would have to settle for the subpar status quo where people who weren’t engineers were able to survive under capitalism” (162).
I reread this passage several times. Even if these statements reflected Liu’s past views, who wants to be called subpar to a machine?
Liu’s problematic descriptions of women and the working-class people supporting Silicon Valley’s gig economy make me question Liu’s intended audience with this book. Whose favor is she trying to gain? How does Liu expect to create solidarity in a worker’s movement (286) when she spends 75% of her book making subtle (sometimes) digs at the movements’ key players? If I had given up at this point, this book would have read like a Chaos Monkeys copycat.
When Liu realizes the connection between Silicon Valley’s decades-long problems of inequality and the structural issues at the roots of capitalism, I took a deep breath and powered on.
Only in the final chapter does Liu lay out her vision for a more ideal Silicon Valley, for the people. Yet, her solutions lack meat and practicality. These 20 pages, marketed to be the book’s entire focus, are greased with fatty “shoulds” and no “hows.” They read like the scribbled Post-It notes of an undergraduate student trying to “ideate” the solution to global hunger.
Yes, I agree with Liu’s suggestions to give users more say in the products they use, to break up tech monopolies, to raise the minimum wage and give contracted workers unemployment benefits and healthcare. Many of us do.
But what Liu’s brief sketches of a future Silicon Valley fail to accurately convey is the huge amount of work undertaken by tens of thousands of people across the country to make these demands common points of discussion. The voices of this growing movement are nowhere to be found. Liu sprinkles in a few wistful references to United Kingdom policy (271, 278, 281), but fails to describe current state-government-led lawsuits to classify ridesharing drivers as full employees, mounting protests by contract workers at companies such as Amazon and Instacart, progressive organizations devoted to combating gentrification and the Bay’s ever-growing housing crisis. She dismisses labor unions as being “in steep decline,” ignoring headlines in the last few years highlighting successful movements to unionize and the recent growth in the progressive movement (223).
What are actionable ways tech workers can contribute to this movement while recognizing their privilege? Organizations to join, politicians and nonprofits to support, protests to publicize and attend? We must give voice to the people at the root of this movement instead of stealing their microphones away.
In the book’s prologue, Liu sets out to disrupt Silicon Valley, the industry that typically does the disrupting (21). Liu’s plan: to disrupt activism, by neglecting years of existing work and repackaging well-known remedies to well-known problems in a shiny new box called patronization.
May 24, 2025
(Re-tracing Steps to) Critiquing Capitalism…
Preamble:
--2025 is shaping up to be my best reading year yet, no doubt a reflection of my priority topics becoming ever more dire in the real world…
…It’s also looking like my worst fiction year (probably not a coincidence either). So, when I need a breather from dense nonfiction, I’m increasing relying on biographies (smooth narration; still nonfiction).
--This 2020 autobiography is unique for me, as I was already following the author’s Goodreads reviews (!); here’s a reading summary written by the author…btw, 200 books read in a year, esp. books on capitalism?! My reading process could never…
Highlights:
1) Autobiography:
--Miscommunication plagues our conception of “politics” and “economics”, with social media amplifying this tendency. I’m reminded of this passage from Varoufakis’ And the Weak Suffer What They Must? Europe's Crisis and America's Economic Future:
i) We all started from ignorance.
ii) We all (to varying degrees) have been socially conditioned by status quo ideologies. (Side note: this is how I play with the thought experiment of Lord of the Flies).
iii) Thus, to communicate any subsequent challenges we developed against the status quo, the obvious first case study to consider is ourselves, i.e. re-tracing our own steps. What have been our own experiences in recognizing and exploring systemic contradictions? What have been our barriers, mistakes, inspirations?
…Sure, our own steps will not be transferrable to everyone, but there is no single communication style that is optimal for everyone. For those who create content, you will appreciate this balancing act and the sacrifices you must make as you prioritize specific target audiences. Start with your strengths; find others to build on your weaknesses.
--This re-tracing method suggests why Che’s The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey (“coming-of-age” story of an apolitical 23-year-old medical student/bro) is much more widely relatable than his later works as a revolutionary (ex. I Embrace You with All My Revolutionary Fervor: Letters 1947-1967).
--This extended preamble is to set up how this autobiography was an easy sell for me, as so much of the context was personally relatable. Now, the book’s actual target audience would be me 15+ years ago. It’s useful reflecting on what tools/challenges/inspirations this book would have provided my past self…
2) Silicon Valley:
--While I work in/around the IT (Information Technology) sector, I was never in the heart of it as a developer/start-up like the author was. However, the assumption of “meritocracy” was definitely prevalent in my upraising, amplified by the immigrant mentality that prioritized economic mobility (“economic freedom”) given disadvantages in sociocultural mobility (from lack of sociocultural roots).
…So, while I wasn’t deep enough in IT to be lured by the likes of Paul Graham/Elon Musk, I read my own share of technocrats early on (Friedrich A. Hayek, Steven Pinker, Sam Harris, Malcolm Gladwell, etc.).
--I found notable the framing of IT technocracy’s “revenge of the nerds” and their method of “ask for forgiveness, not permission”. The alternative of prioritizing “explainability” reminds me of:
i) (radical) hacker culture which seeks to understand technologies rather than leave them as black boxes controlled by others; related is privacy (via encryption) for the public while transparency (via whistleblowing leaks) for the powerful, to counter asymmetrical power:
-This Machine Kills Secrets: How WikiLeakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World's Information
-Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet
-When Google Met Wikileaks
ii) Ha-Joon Chang (in 23 Things They Don't Tell You about Capitalism) argues that “more transparency” is not enough (in the context of regulating overly-complex financial instruments), since we have limited capacity in processing such complexities. Chang states that such complex financial instruments of mass destruction need to be outright banned. “Economic freedom” cannot be allowed to snuff out economic responsibility.
3) Abolishing Capitalism:
--Now, the key contradictions that made me question capitalism did not stem from IT; they first came from imperialism, followed by financial speculation’s inequalities/volatility and finally environmental degradation.
--Towards the end, this book does introduce key capitalist contradictions along with its IT-starting point. At this point, the goal is to open doors rather than settle debates:
i) Entrepreneurship: private investor-driven profit-seeking vs. public needs/ownership
ii) Work: alienation of corporations vs. workers’ autonomy/public needs
iii) Services: rent-seeking austerity cuts vs. Universal Basic Services (which also diminishes the importance of money/debt)
iv) Intellectual Property: private rent-seeking vs. open API/Commons/personal data ownership and portability
v) Culture: advertisements as market distortions vs. consumer research/independent journalism
--If we put on our data science hat, I always think of how limited the book format is, i.e. massive amount of linear text with limited formatting. I was expecting a detailed reading list with commentary (I love seeing these, ex. in Bigger Than Bernie: How We Go from the Sanders Campaign to Democratic Socialism) to accompany the opening of doors, but I guess this was considered outside the format’s scope (see the author’s website) as book references were left to end notes. I find book catalogs so useful for this, to organize/share/connect ideas with formatted reviews.
…Thus, I found the strength of this book is definitely in the autobiographical re-tracing, whereas the anti-capitalism 101 guide was too abbreviated by the formatting. Given this book's IT focus, I'd pair it with:
-Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present
-Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism
--Finally, let’s conclude with the target audience and organizing power. I guess this is a bit outside the scope of the autobiography, but the next obvious step is to unpack the strategy for tech workers. How do we unpack the opportunities (ex. strategic chokepoints in logistics: Choke Points: Logistics Workers Disrupting the Global Supply Chain) and barriers (ex. technocracy/meritocracy culture detailed in the book)?
…What examples can we draw on from history? What are current case studies we can unpack? I’m reminded of David Graeber (btw, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory is another useful pairing) considering revolutionary movements as a convergence of:
i) upwardly-mobile working-class (ex. peasants/labourers receiving higher education)
ii) downwardly-mobile middle-class (ex. educated urban professionals who cannot find jobs in their professions)
--P.S. ...yes, I did read the top (negative) review.
...Yes, if you saw the title of this book and thought it would be Marx's Capital adapted to critique Silicon Valley, then you might also give this a 1-star rating.
...However, clearly I got pass the title of the book, and read the book from the perspective of what I thought would be a reasonable/useful target audience.
...I also have those scorch-earth moments where I lay out all my critical tools to completely deconstruct my target. I just hope the Left doesn't expend too much of this energy on itself...
Preamble:
--2025 is shaping up to be my best reading year yet, no doubt a reflection of my priority topics becoming ever more dire in the real world…
…It’s also looking like my worst fiction year (probably not a coincidence either). So, when I need a breather from dense nonfiction, I’m increasing relying on biographies (smooth narration; still nonfiction).
--This 2020 autobiography is unique for me, as I was already following the author’s Goodreads reviews (!); here’s a reading summary written by the author…btw, 200 books read in a year, esp. books on capitalism?! My reading process could never…
Highlights:
1) Autobiography:
--Miscommunication plagues our conception of “politics” and “economics”, with social media amplifying this tendency. I’m reminded of this passage from Varoufakis’ And the Weak Suffer What They Must? Europe's Crisis and America's Economic Future:
Leonard Schapiro, writing on Stalinism, warned us that “the true object of propaganda is neither to convince nor even to persuade. But to produce a uniform pattern of public utterances in which the first trace of unorthodox thought reveals itself as a jarring dissonance.”…So, where do we even start for communicating dissident views? Well…
During the five months of negotiating at the Eurogroup on behalf of Greece, I bore the brunt precisely of this type of propaganda. My attempts to infuse some rational humanism into the negotiations on my country’s fiscal and reform agenda were met with a concerted effort to turn our sensible proposals into a “jarring dissonance.” It is quite remarkable, and somewhat disheartening, that an insightful line once written about Stalinism has so much resonance today in the corridors of power in Brussels, Frankfurt and Berlin.
i) We all started from ignorance.
ii) We all (to varying degrees) have been socially conditioned by status quo ideologies. (Side note: this is how I play with the thought experiment of Lord of the Flies).
iii) Thus, to communicate any subsequent challenges we developed against the status quo, the obvious first case study to consider is ourselves, i.e. re-tracing our own steps. What have been our own experiences in recognizing and exploring systemic contradictions? What have been our barriers, mistakes, inspirations?
…Sure, our own steps will not be transferrable to everyone, but there is no single communication style that is optimal for everyone. For those who create content, you will appreciate this balancing act and the sacrifices you must make as you prioritize specific target audiences. Start with your strengths; find others to build on your weaknesses.
--This re-tracing method suggests why Che’s The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey (“coming-of-age” story of an apolitical 23-year-old medical student/bro) is much more widely relatable than his later works as a revolutionary (ex. I Embrace You with All My Revolutionary Fervor: Letters 1947-1967).
--This extended preamble is to set up how this autobiography was an easy sell for me, as so much of the context was personally relatable. Now, the book’s actual target audience would be me 15+ years ago. It’s useful reflecting on what tools/challenges/inspirations this book would have provided my past self…
2) Silicon Valley:
--While I work in/around the IT (Information Technology) sector, I was never in the heart of it as a developer/start-up like the author was. However, the assumption of “meritocracy” was definitely prevalent in my upraising, amplified by the immigrant mentality that prioritized economic mobility (“economic freedom”) given disadvantages in sociocultural mobility (from lack of sociocultural roots).
…So, while I wasn’t deep enough in IT to be lured by the likes of Paul Graham/Elon Musk, I read my own share of technocrats early on (Friedrich A. Hayek, Steven Pinker, Sam Harris, Malcolm Gladwell, etc.).
--I found notable the framing of IT technocracy’s “revenge of the nerds” and their method of “ask for forgiveness, not permission”. The alternative of prioritizing “explainability” reminds me of:
i) (radical) hacker culture which seeks to understand technologies rather than leave them as black boxes controlled by others; related is privacy (via encryption) for the public while transparency (via whistleblowing leaks) for the powerful, to counter asymmetrical power:
-This Machine Kills Secrets: How WikiLeakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World's Information
-Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet
-When Google Met Wikileaks
ii) Ha-Joon Chang (in 23 Things They Don't Tell You about Capitalism) argues that “more transparency” is not enough (in the context of regulating overly-complex financial instruments), since we have limited capacity in processing such complexities. Chang states that such complex financial instruments of mass destruction need to be outright banned. “Economic freedom” cannot be allowed to snuff out economic responsibility.
3) Abolishing Capitalism:
--Now, the key contradictions that made me question capitalism did not stem from IT; they first came from imperialism, followed by financial speculation’s inequalities/volatility and finally environmental degradation.
--Towards the end, this book does introduce key capitalist contradictions along with its IT-starting point. At this point, the goal is to open doors rather than settle debates:
i) Entrepreneurship: private investor-driven profit-seeking vs. public needs/ownership
ii) Work: alienation of corporations vs. workers’ autonomy/public needs
iii) Services: rent-seeking austerity cuts vs. Universal Basic Services (which also diminishes the importance of money/debt)
iv) Intellectual Property: private rent-seeking vs. open API/Commons/personal data ownership and portability
v) Culture: advertisements as market distortions vs. consumer research/independent journalism
--If we put on our data science hat, I always think of how limited the book format is, i.e. massive amount of linear text with limited formatting. I was expecting a detailed reading list with commentary (I love seeing these, ex. in Bigger Than Bernie: How We Go from the Sanders Campaign to Democratic Socialism) to accompany the opening of doors, but I guess this was considered outside the format’s scope (see the author’s website) as book references were left to end notes. I find book catalogs so useful for this, to organize/share/connect ideas with formatted reviews.
…Thus, I found the strength of this book is definitely in the autobiographical re-tracing, whereas the anti-capitalism 101 guide was too abbreviated by the formatting. Given this book's IT focus, I'd pair it with:
-Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present
-Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism
--Finally, let’s conclude with the target audience and organizing power. I guess this is a bit outside the scope of the autobiography, but the next obvious step is to unpack the strategy for tech workers. How do we unpack the opportunities (ex. strategic chokepoints in logistics: Choke Points: Logistics Workers Disrupting the Global Supply Chain) and barriers (ex. technocracy/meritocracy culture detailed in the book)?
…What examples can we draw on from history? What are current case studies we can unpack? I’m reminded of David Graeber (btw, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory is another useful pairing) considering revolutionary movements as a convergence of:
i) upwardly-mobile working-class (ex. peasants/labourers receiving higher education)
ii) downwardly-mobile middle-class (ex. educated urban professionals who cannot find jobs in their professions)
--P.S. ...yes, I did read the top (negative) review.
...Yes, if you saw the title of this book and thought it would be Marx's Capital adapted to critique Silicon Valley, then you might also give this a 1-star rating.
...However, clearly I got pass the title of the book, and read the book from the perspective of what I thought would be a reasonable/useful target audience.
...I also have those scorch-earth moments where I lay out all my critical tools to completely deconstruct my target. I just hope the Left doesn't expend too much of this energy on itself...
April 23, 2020
As Liu writes, this is not a 12-step program. Instead, it's a deeply personal memoir of her journey deep into silicon valley / tech startup culture, and her growing disillusionment with not just her startup, but the industry as a whole. Most of the book, therefore, is descriptive rather than prescriptive, save the final chapter where she outlines her visions for the future and some key stepping stones for how to get there.
I especially loved this final chapter. Liu calls for a "reclamation" of the things that make technology exciting in the first place; it's helpful that she has intimate knowledge of how the tech industry operates and how software itself is built. For instance, the section on intellectual property in this chapter is quite detailed, making a really interesting case for open-sourcing or at least making public currently-proprietary code; she still, however, suggests intermediary or hybrid approaches as a transition.
While I will say I initially expected something closer to theorizing class in the context of tech/tech workers a la Marx, I'm so glad Abolish Silicon Valley turned out the way it did. The book itself is a reminder that regardless of what futures one might dream of (and regardless of what theories one might come up with), Silicon Valley is, at the end of the day, a collection of individuals with their own hopes and aspirations. It's individuals changing their minds--like Liu did hers--that will get us to that future.
I especially loved this final chapter. Liu calls for a "reclamation" of the things that make technology exciting in the first place; it's helpful that she has intimate knowledge of how the tech industry operates and how software itself is built. For instance, the section on intellectual property in this chapter is quite detailed, making a really interesting case for open-sourcing or at least making public currently-proprietary code; she still, however, suggests intermediary or hybrid approaches as a transition.
While I will say I initially expected something closer to theorizing class in the context of tech/tech workers a la Marx, I'm so glad Abolish Silicon Valley turned out the way it did. The book itself is a reminder that regardless of what futures one might dream of (and regardless of what theories one might come up with), Silicon Valley is, at the end of the day, a collection of individuals with their own hopes and aspirations. It's individuals changing their minds--like Liu did hers--that will get us to that future.
March 18, 2025
I'll freely admit that I grabbed this book because of its title (and, moments later, author), without first reading its synopsis:
(1) Title: Having just finished Quinn Slobodian's excellent book on anarcho-capitalism (or, post-democracy capitalism), Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy, and finding that that book's relative lightness on the tech sector left a knowledge gap that I wanted at least partially filled, the title appeared to promise that in prima facie spades when it appeared in the "readers also enjoyed" mix down the page, where I did a double-take at the name of the:
(2) Author: Hey, I knew, or "knew" her, right? Well, sorta: Wendy and I became GR-friends, whatever that means, cos not really, back around 2016, around the time detailed in the book that she began falling out of love with the tech sector in which she worked , and experiencing an intellectual rebirth via her readings collated at that time on GR...And it was my memory of the books she'd been reading, and my thinking "She's got good taste in political economy!" that sealed the deal for me then & there...
And of course the book was not at all what I expected, or rather, as regards what I originally hoped to see
(ii) confined to an intriguing set of proposals towards the end of the book.
And though I would have loved to have seen that What Is To Be Done portion of the book considerably expanded upon, I shall await* her sequel. I enjoyed following her journey from tech-true-believer into tech-skeptic and champion for that hoary notion, "The Public Good", which I do hope we can keep alive, in spite of the recent merger of political and tech sector power down south, in States #1-48.
(* I would add that recent books by Cory Doctorow and Yanis Varoufakis
The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation
Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism
are excellent additions to one's reading in tech-related, "practical" or end-user political economy...
—as is Aaron Bastani's blue-sky-thinking manifesto:
Fully Automated Luxury Communism: A Manifesto)
(1) Title: Having just finished Quinn Slobodian's excellent book on anarcho-capitalism (or, post-democracy capitalism), Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy, and finding that that book's relative lightness on the tech sector left a knowledge gap that I wanted at least partially filled, the title appeared to promise that in prima facie spades when it appeared in the "readers also enjoyed" mix down the page, where I did a double-take at the name of the:
(2) Author: Hey, I knew, or "knew" her, right? Well, sorta: Wendy and I became GR-friends, whatever that means, cos not really, back around 2016, around the time detailed in the book that she began falling out of love with the tech sector in which she worked , and experiencing an intellectual rebirth via her readings collated at that time on GR...And it was my memory of the books she'd been reading, and my thinking "She's got good taste in political economy!" that sealed the deal for me then & there...
And of course the book was not at all what I expected, or rather, as regards what I originally hoped to see
((i) an institutional analysis of the problem, and (ii) a programmatic manifesto as a gesture towards a solution)(i) was sprinkled throughout this memoir, which is indeed more of Ms. Liu's personal journey through the Free Open Source Software movement and into—and then very much out of—the startup world (via time interning with Google), and
(ii) confined to an intriguing set of proposals towards the end of the book.
And though I would have loved to have seen that What Is To Be Done portion of the book considerably expanded upon, I shall await* her sequel. I enjoyed following her journey from tech-true-believer into tech-skeptic and champion for that hoary notion, "The Public Good", which I do hope we can keep alive, in spite of the recent merger of political and tech sector power down south, in States #1-48.
(* I would add that recent books by Cory Doctorow and Yanis Varoufakis
The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation
Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism
are excellent additions to one's reading in tech-related, "practical" or end-user political economy...
—as is Aaron Bastani's blue-sky-thinking manifesto:
Fully Automated Luxury Communism: A Manifesto)
September 27, 2021
Ted Chiang said in an interview that people's fears about AI and technology isn't really about AI or technology, but more about those things in a capitalist system. I think about that all the time. I recommend this to everyone who's disillusioned about how capitalism uses technology to screw everyone over.
As someone who has worked most of her career in startups, I spent the first half going, "Oh no, Wendy. No!" I almost quit reading it, but I'm glad I pushed through. The first half is less a cautionary tale and more of a setup of the author's mindset before their awakening.
The next quarter of the book was about the awakening, which is worth reading, but even better is the last quarter, which answered my question of "Okay, everything is crap and we need to burn it all down, but how???" Liu proposes many different solutions and avenues for further research on how to build a better system.
And yes, I recognize the irony of writing this review on a platform owned by one of the biggest capitalists ever.
As someone who has worked most of her career in startups, I spent the first half going, "Oh no, Wendy. No!" I almost quit reading it, but I'm glad I pushed through. The first half is less a cautionary tale and more of a setup of the author's mindset before their awakening.
The next quarter of the book was about the awakening, which is worth reading, but even better is the last quarter, which answered my question of "Okay, everything is crap and we need to burn it all down, but how???" Liu proposes many different solutions and avenues for further research on how to build a better system.
And yes, I recognize the irony of writing this review on a platform owned by one of the biggest capitalists ever.
Read
July 18, 2020Edit ~7/17:
After reading another user's review on this book, I decided to revisit mine and express some issues I had:
At the beginning of this book, Liu states that it is a memoir. I didn't expect it to be one, given the title, but the only respite that came from this book was Wendy's growth over the years. I expected an organized critique of Silicon Valley, or at least a memoir interwoven with criticism, but this wasn't achieved either. I understand why this would frustrate readers and it annoyed me to no end at the beginning because you're unsure of what the author's goal is. I kept reading because I found her story interesting, but you can decide for yourself whether you care about this or not. However, the title,"Abolish Silicon Valley: How to Liberate Technology from Capitalism " is incredibly misleading because Liu never fully explained how to liberate technology from capitalism. The only valuable part that has anything to do with the title is the last chapter.
There were good quotes in this book, but it still felt like Liu was scrambling to get this book done for whatever reason. It was written too soon and none of the ideas are fully fleshed out.
After reading another user's review on this book, I decided to revisit mine and express some issues I had:
At the beginning of this book, Liu states that it is a memoir. I didn't expect it to be one, given the title, but the only respite that came from this book was Wendy's growth over the years. I expected an organized critique of Silicon Valley, or at least a memoir interwoven with criticism, but this wasn't achieved either. I understand why this would frustrate readers and it annoyed me to no end at the beginning because you're unsure of what the author's goal is. I kept reading because I found her story interesting, but you can decide for yourself whether you care about this or not. However, the title,"Abolish Silicon Valley: How to Liberate Technology from Capitalism " is incredibly misleading because Liu never fully explained how to liberate technology from capitalism. The only valuable part that has anything to do with the title is the last chapter.
There were good quotes in this book, but it still felt like Liu was scrambling to get this book done for whatever reason. It was written too soon and none of the ideas are fully fleshed out.
April 18, 2020
This is a biographical account that reads like a bildungsroman: it details the author's journey from precocious coder to Google intern, to co-founder to someone somewhat facetiously calling for the abolition of Silicon Valley. The author's recollection of these personal milestones is shadowed by a gradual political awakening, which is shared with us retrospectively.
You’ll find a lot of tech motifs here: long hours, a deference to Paul Graham, a soteriological view of Silicon Valley (we’re smart and can fix the world with just software and first principles!) and more. What’s refreshing is Liu’s scepticism and reappraisal of those beliefs and customs - often considered unquestionable gospel by many people who work in tech. Towards the end of the book it becomes less biographical and more interrogative, as remembrances give way to analysis coupled with recommendations for how we might democratise tech devlopment.
“Stupid Environment” is the standout chapter for me. Throughout the book, Liu’s prose is frequently intricate and captivating, but Stupid Environment felt markedly better than everything else. Compared to earlier chapters, it feels unrestrained, and it is delectable as a result. Though a little weakened by its density - it’s a pirouetting, critical panorama of capital accumulation, fiscal policy, Wall Street, inequality and more - it was a treat, and worth the price of admission alone.
lol at the forthcoming broadsides at the author’s start-up failure. In fact, I see one has already arrived. Welcome. Allow me to make a brief comment.
When a start up doesn’t work out it’s permissible, no even more so than that - it’s admirable to pivot. Yet an individual who performs the same manoeuvre is to be derided? I don’t think so. Had the author’s start-up succeeded it’s unlikely the author would’ve developed the same politics, and this is readily conceded by Liu herself in the book. But this shouldn’t undermine her appeals - it should enhance them. Cut us some slack.
Before I make a purchase online, I, like many people, read one-star reviews about the product I want. Sometimes I’ll do so even when I’ve already committed to buying the product. If you have an interest in tech, or Silicon Valley, or Hacker News - and you’re an evangelist for that world, treat Abolish Silicon Valley as your one star review and read it. I’d also recommend this to anyone who wants to become an engineer or a product manager at a big tech company, to offset all the triumphal stories that’ll find their way to you along your journey.
Irrespective of your politics or affinity for the valley, this is a brave, personal account which should be welcomed into the canon of modern tech critique. Well worth a read.
You’ll find a lot of tech motifs here: long hours, a deference to Paul Graham, a soteriological view of Silicon Valley (we’re smart and can fix the world with just software and first principles!) and more. What’s refreshing is Liu’s scepticism and reappraisal of those beliefs and customs - often considered unquestionable gospel by many people who work in tech. Towards the end of the book it becomes less biographical and more interrogative, as remembrances give way to analysis coupled with recommendations for how we might democratise tech devlopment.
“Stupid Environment” is the standout chapter for me. Throughout the book, Liu’s prose is frequently intricate and captivating, but Stupid Environment felt markedly better than everything else. Compared to earlier chapters, it feels unrestrained, and it is delectable as a result. Though a little weakened by its density - it’s a pirouetting, critical panorama of capital accumulation, fiscal policy, Wall Street, inequality and more - it was a treat, and worth the price of admission alone.
lol at the forthcoming broadsides at the author’s start-up failure. In fact, I see one has already arrived. Welcome. Allow me to make a brief comment.
When a start up doesn’t work out it’s permissible, no even more so than that - it’s admirable to pivot. Yet an individual who performs the same manoeuvre is to be derided? I don’t think so. Had the author’s start-up succeeded it’s unlikely the author would’ve developed the same politics, and this is readily conceded by Liu herself in the book. But this shouldn’t undermine her appeals - it should enhance them. Cut us some slack.
Before I make a purchase online, I, like many people, read one-star reviews about the product I want. Sometimes I’ll do so even when I’ve already committed to buying the product. If you have an interest in tech, or Silicon Valley, or Hacker News - and you’re an evangelist for that world, treat Abolish Silicon Valley as your one star review and read it. I’d also recommend this to anyone who wants to become an engineer or a product manager at a big tech company, to offset all the triumphal stories that’ll find their way to you along your journey.
Irrespective of your politics or affinity for the valley, this is a brave, personal account which should be welcomed into the canon of modern tech critique. Well worth a read.
April 19, 2020
Needs an editor and a direction
This book was all over the place and needs to be fact checked
Nancy Pelosi is not a Senator!!! My goodness.
This book was all over the place and needs to be fact checked
Nancy Pelosi is not a Senator!!! My goodness.
May 8, 2020
When I picked up the book amongst the shelf of the nonfiction section of a local independent bookstore's website (currently, we are in the middle of a pandemic and bookstores are physically closed), I was immediately intrigued. I do, in fact, live in Silicon Valley, and the website I saw this book in is also in the greater Bay Area region. I grew up here as my family emigrated in the 60's and have personally seen the transition of a colorful, bold Bay Area into gentrified, technology-based Bay Area.
I presumed this text would contain relevant, extensive research in the downsides of Silicon Valley culture (i.e. lack of user privacy, housing crisis, wealth inequality, etc.), which is also embedded with class, racial, and gender inequality, and ways in which we can envision a different Silicon Valley (and a global technological world). Alas, this was not the book.
It should also be said that I have a background in social sciences (namely, sociology and anthropology) and I understand wholeheartedly that perhaps I am not the target audience of this work. Nonetheless, despite not being able to grasp certain technological terms nor the hardship of having a career in the field, the book was less about explaining to the reader how to "abolish" Silicon Valley than it is a memoir about the author's life and journey through graduating university and starting her career.
To be honest, her chapter "A New Industrial Model", in which she goes on explaining what her title sets out to do, is (in my opinion) compiled of hollow "solutions", in which "Reclaim" serves as nothing but a pretty buzzword. It was clear to me in this chapter that Liu wrote this work a bit prematurely, still starry eyed and enthusiastic over discovering and learning what social problems and philosophy were.
As I got to the end of the novel (which I was skimming at this point), it occurred to me that Liu wrote this novel because she was upset that she didn't succeed at her start-up. She writes in later chapters that she "always felt that there was something deeply wrong about her field" (paraphrasing), but nothing in her previous chapters about growing up and going through college alluded to this--only when she began to fail.
In addition, I assumed she would have more insight on the gender inequality embedded in Silicon Valley culture (sexism, sexual harassment, glass ceilings, gender pay gap ETC.) since she talked about having a gender neutral alias growing up and didn't want to associate herself with being like "other" females in the beginning. However, it literally was not a problem throughout the entire novel. It was not talked about, not even in chapter 11.
Overall - like I said, I have a different academic and career background than Liu - and I do think that she had great things to say about growing up and believing in meritocracy, or that one's career defined them. I believe that if she stuck to a memoir format (or advertised this novel in that way) then I would've liked this novel more. I probably wouldn't have picked it up and read it, but I wouldn't have been so irritated with it.
Liu thought herself as radical, but to me she was more idealistic and naive, not defining the words she was using and not giving real ways in which we can "reclaim" entrepreneurship, work, public services, etc. It is still clear to me that she truly doesn't have extensive knowledge on what it means to abolish social structures, and that you can't talk about abolishing Silicon Valley without getting into the nitty-gritty of racism, classism, sexism, that exists in the Silicon Valley.
I presumed this text would contain relevant, extensive research in the downsides of Silicon Valley culture (i.e. lack of user privacy, housing crisis, wealth inequality, etc.), which is also embedded with class, racial, and gender inequality, and ways in which we can envision a different Silicon Valley (and a global technological world). Alas, this was not the book.
It should also be said that I have a background in social sciences (namely, sociology and anthropology) and I understand wholeheartedly that perhaps I am not the target audience of this work. Nonetheless, despite not being able to grasp certain technological terms nor the hardship of having a career in the field, the book was less about explaining to the reader how to "abolish" Silicon Valley than it is a memoir about the author's life and journey through graduating university and starting her career.
To be honest, her chapter "A New Industrial Model", in which she goes on explaining what her title sets out to do, is (in my opinion) compiled of hollow "solutions", in which "Reclaim" serves as nothing but a pretty buzzword. It was clear to me in this chapter that Liu wrote this work a bit prematurely, still starry eyed and enthusiastic over discovering and learning what social problems and philosophy were.
As I got to the end of the novel (which I was skimming at this point), it occurred to me that Liu wrote this novel because she was upset that she didn't succeed at her start-up. She writes in later chapters that she "always felt that there was something deeply wrong about her field" (paraphrasing), but nothing in her previous chapters about growing up and going through college alluded to this--only when she began to fail.
In addition, I assumed she would have more insight on the gender inequality embedded in Silicon Valley culture (sexism, sexual harassment, glass ceilings, gender pay gap ETC.) since she talked about having a gender neutral alias growing up and didn't want to associate herself with being like "other" females in the beginning. However, it literally was not a problem throughout the entire novel. It was not talked about, not even in chapter 11.
Overall - like I said, I have a different academic and career background than Liu - and I do think that she had great things to say about growing up and believing in meritocracy, or that one's career defined them. I believe that if she stuck to a memoir format (or advertised this novel in that way) then I would've liked this novel more. I probably wouldn't have picked it up and read it, but I wouldn't have been so irritated with it.
Liu thought herself as radical, but to me she was more idealistic and naive, not defining the words she was using and not giving real ways in which we can "reclaim" entrepreneurship, work, public services, etc. It is still clear to me that she truly doesn't have extensive knowledge on what it means to abolish social structures, and that you can't talk about abolishing Silicon Valley without getting into the nitty-gritty of racism, classism, sexism, that exists in the Silicon Valley.
April 23, 2020
This book isn't what I expected, and in a chapter near the end the author admits they 'only somewhat jokingly' are calling for the abolition of Silicon Valley ... I was expecting no joking at all!
I thought this would be about alternatives to VCs and typical startup funding, with examples of what funding currently looks like, and explanations of how alternatives could create a fairer society. Instead for the vast majority of the book the author recounts their internship at google and then several years of trying to make an adtech startup work. Elon Musk is heralded as a good example of someone who is 'anticapitalist', because he cares about the environment? The ways to improve are short and include examples like preventing Disney's copyright lobbying, and how pensions are better euro-style (considered a public good) than US-style (personal investments, tied to working X years, etc).
I do agree with the improvement points but they are only one of the 12 chapters, and my main feeling about this book is that it just sounds like a moderately well informed friend telling me the story of their career, and that's not what I expected. But maybe I just have really great friends!!
I thought this would be about alternatives to VCs and typical startup funding, with examples of what funding currently looks like, and explanations of how alternatives could create a fairer society. Instead for the vast majority of the book the author recounts their internship at google and then several years of trying to make an adtech startup work. Elon Musk is heralded as a good example of someone who is 'anticapitalist', because he cares about the environment? The ways to improve are short and include examples like preventing Disney's copyright lobbying, and how pensions are better euro-style (considered a public good) than US-style (personal investments, tied to working X years, etc).
I do agree with the improvement points but they are only one of the 12 chapters, and my main feeling about this book is that it just sounds like a moderately well informed friend telling me the story of their career, and that's not what I expected. But maybe I just have really great friends!!
June 16, 2020
I found this memoir to be compelling and, admittedly ideologically predisposed to do so, agreed wholeheartedly with the vast majority of Abolish Silicon Valley's conclusions. It's a good addition to the startup bildungsroman genre along with Anna Wiener's Uncanny Valley, though the two books also feel very different. Wiener's writing represented a literary background, while Liu's origins as a technologist feel evident in her use of language (for all that she speaks to justice and fairness, there is prolific reference to externalities, optimization, efficiency, and resource allocation). Not that that is incompatible with pretty writing -- Liu's prose includes some lovely nods to SF's natural beauty, fog curling around the Bay Bridge, the collection of startup shirts so prolific it could make a quilt "warm enough for Quebecois winters." But this is ultimately a book that lives in the realm of ideas more than images or relationships, the momentum of this memoir coming from the author's changing values and ideological inputs (at one point, she writes of consuming books frenetically, a pace of 1/day) rather than dramatically rendered personal events. As such, this felt like a book that could speak equally well to the startup boy-kings still worshipping at the altar of meritocracy as to Jacobin readers calling for expropriation. Both may see in this memoir one of their own.
April 29, 2020
"This book is meant for those whose belief has started to evaporate, and who are now thirsting for a narrative that speaks to their disillusionment. I write for those who are currently not in power, in the hopes that they’ll see the world differently, and from there go on to be part of something I could never have imagined on my own."
It's fascinating because I resonated so much with Wendy's coming into consciousness regarding the failures of capitalism and the radical falseness of meritocracy.
This was an affirming read about how easy it was for me to believe so effortlessly in a system that isn't fair, that exploits the most marginalized, and maintains a horrific economic divide between the haves and the have nots. Wendy's journey was humanizing because as an individual, it's so easy to feel paralyzed and immobilized by this fucked up way our society has oriented itself (with folks in these money making industries being the valiant soldiers that uphold these systems up for the ruling class). But reading this book gave me hope, validated my fears but also my goal that a better world is possible.
Wish this was a required reading for all the kiddos going into tech lol.
It's fascinating because I resonated so much with Wendy's coming into consciousness regarding the failures of capitalism and the radical falseness of meritocracy.
This was an affirming read about how easy it was for me to believe so effortlessly in a system that isn't fair, that exploits the most marginalized, and maintains a horrific economic divide between the haves and the have nots. Wendy's journey was humanizing because as an individual, it's so easy to feel paralyzed and immobilized by this fucked up way our society has oriented itself (with folks in these money making industries being the valiant soldiers that uphold these systems up for the ruling class). But reading this book gave me hope, validated my fears but also my goal that a better world is possible.
Wish this was a required reading for all the kiddos going into tech lol.
April 24, 2020
I was super excited to pick up this book and pre-ordered after reading the author's interview (on Mercury News). The title showed a lot of promise.
The first 77% percent of the book is biography of the author and she describes her life as an engineer and how she went about starting up a company. This part is alright if you are interested in knowing about the decisions and struggles that engineers and founders have to make in their professional life. But I would highly recommend reading
Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley to if you really want to understand the Tech Industry, VC funding, and start-up culture at Silicon Valley.
The first part was underwhelming because the only experience the author has physically working in Silicon Valley is an internship at Google. Rest of the work was based out of Montreal and NYC with occasional visits to the Bay Area. So I was not really convinced on the depth of understanding the author has about the culture at Silicon Valley.
The one chapter (~15%) of the book that actually talks about the title of the book is a laundry list of ideas. It is a decent read if you want to pick up on those ideas and do your own separate reading and analysis on the merits and demerits of such ideas.
If the title was more meaningful and aligned to the actual content to set the expectations right with the readers or if the one line/para ideas listed in the final chapter would have been discussed in details this would have been wonderful.
The first 77% percent of the book is biography of the author and she describes her life as an engineer and how she went about starting up a company. This part is alright if you are interested in knowing about the decisions and struggles that engineers and founders have to make in their professional life. But I would highly recommend reading
Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley to if you really want to understand the Tech Industry, VC funding, and start-up culture at Silicon Valley.
The first part was underwhelming because the only experience the author has physically working in Silicon Valley is an internship at Google. Rest of the work was based out of Montreal and NYC with occasional visits to the Bay Area. So I was not really convinced on the depth of understanding the author has about the culture at Silicon Valley.
The one chapter (~15%) of the book that actually talks about the title of the book is a laundry list of ideas. It is a decent read if you want to pick up on those ideas and do your own separate reading and analysis on the merits and demerits of such ideas.
If the title was more meaningful and aligned to the actual content to set the expectations right with the readers or if the one line/para ideas listed in the final chapter would have been discussed in details this would have been wonderful.
October 3, 2020
If this was framed as a memoir, the book would have merited a far higher rating. Liu does a great job taking readers on a journey mirroring her own while reflecting on her life; when she discovers open-source software and programming I too posited its transformative potential but as we progress further through her life, this fleeting spark of hope is replaced with despair and frustration at all the systemic problems that corrupt the industry.
I thought she highlights these problems quite well, from its abhorrent sexist culture and her own internalized sexism to the alarming wealth disparity within tech-companies and their lack of an ethical barometer. Her transparent illustrations of her own internalized sexist beliefs and the industry's complete lack of concern for individual privacy, as evinced by her assertions that many start-ups, including her own, were misusing and appropriating personal data, were the most insightful for me as they were the things I was least aware of. Ultimately, after reading the chapters capturing her story, I agreed with Liu in that the sector, and economy, needs to be transformed at large.
The problem is that this was close to 80% of the book's content. Although I can walk away confident that reform is necessary, Liu's answer to "how to liberate technology from capitalism", the claimed purpose of the book, is cursory at best. This isn't to say I don't agree with her proposals because for the most part I do - among other suggestions, viewing excessive advertising as a market distortion is a clever economic argument and pegging the salary of a corporation's highest ranked executives to their lowest paid workers is a great idea. But, after presenting the need for reforms brilliantly, it felt as if Liu had ran out of time and adorned her subsequent slides with nothing more than a title, without any text or substance underneath. Which is a shame, as I still enjoyed reading this book and it was definitely worth my time - it just wasn't what it promised to be.
I thought she highlights these problems quite well, from its abhorrent sexist culture and her own internalized sexism to the alarming wealth disparity within tech-companies and their lack of an ethical barometer. Her transparent illustrations of her own internalized sexist beliefs and the industry's complete lack of concern for individual privacy, as evinced by her assertions that many start-ups, including her own, were misusing and appropriating personal data, were the most insightful for me as they were the things I was least aware of. Ultimately, after reading the chapters capturing her story, I agreed with Liu in that the sector, and economy, needs to be transformed at large.
The problem is that this was close to 80% of the book's content. Although I can walk away confident that reform is necessary, Liu's answer to "how to liberate technology from capitalism", the claimed purpose of the book, is cursory at best. This isn't to say I don't agree with her proposals because for the most part I do - among other suggestions, viewing excessive advertising as a market distortion is a clever economic argument and pegging the salary of a corporation's highest ranked executives to their lowest paid workers is a great idea. But, after presenting the need for reforms brilliantly, it felt as if Liu had ran out of time and adorned her subsequent slides with nothing more than a title, without any text or substance underneath. Which is a shame, as I still enjoyed reading this book and it was definitely worth my time - it just wasn't what it promised to be.
July 8, 2021
More so memoir over manifesto.
As a memoir, it's okay. She's had experiences that are worth reading about. As a manifesto, it fails, delivering a hodgepodge grocery list of reforms (worthwhile reforms but explained in a rushed way) and waving her hands around saying the journey will be long and hard but there must be hope for a better future. Admittedly, as Liu writes, this book is not meant for me but for people in the tech industry flirting with tech skepticism and leftist ideas.
This book's biggest problem is its title which is not actually what the book is about. It's ironic how she spent so much of her time in a startup trying to keep up with the flashy and unrealistic products cooked up by her CEO and now she has a book headlined with a flash of techlash marketing pizzazz and a text that fails to live up to the hype.
I think this book had potential. If she devoted this book to be more so of a memoir, she could offer a whole lot more insight about the contradictions and absurdities of the startup racket. I found the explorations of those feelings especially interesting. If she focused more on the manifesto, she could have explored what "abolition" actually means and looks like (in the vein of Ruth Wilson Gilmore on prison abolition).
Ultimately this is a leftist bildungsroman. Good for her. Glad she is on the left because she seems really intense and would be generally unpleasant to be around if she were still a techno-optimist neoliberal. But as a reader, it was a disappointment.
As a memoir, it's okay. She's had experiences that are worth reading about. As a manifesto, it fails, delivering a hodgepodge grocery list of reforms (worthwhile reforms but explained in a rushed way) and waving her hands around saying the journey will be long and hard but there must be hope for a better future. Admittedly, as Liu writes, this book is not meant for me but for people in the tech industry flirting with tech skepticism and leftist ideas.
This book's biggest problem is its title which is not actually what the book is about. It's ironic how she spent so much of her time in a startup trying to keep up with the flashy and unrealistic products cooked up by her CEO and now she has a book headlined with a flash of techlash marketing pizzazz and a text that fails to live up to the hype.
I think this book had potential. If she devoted this book to be more so of a memoir, she could offer a whole lot more insight about the contradictions and absurdities of the startup racket. I found the explorations of those feelings especially interesting. If she focused more on the manifesto, she could have explored what "abolition" actually means and looks like (in the vein of Ruth Wilson Gilmore on prison abolition).
Ultimately this is a leftist bildungsroman. Good for her. Glad she is on the left because she seems really intense and would be generally unpleasant to be around if she were still a techno-optimist neoliberal. But as a reader, it was a disappointment.
May 9, 2021
A fantastic read for anyone whose a young technologist with the inklings of "huh wtf is this industry and why does it smell like corporate greed". Wendy starts off the novel with a narrative overview discussing the ups and down of the startup life, what it's like to apply to YC, what it's like to attend accelerators, and the highs and lows of (high school football) running a startup. It's accurate, relatable, and hits hard if you've also worked at Google for a summer and were like "oh".
She ends with an overview of what we need to do in order to Abolish Silicon Valley, a detailed 5 topics section from culture to work to entrepreneurship. While I fundamentally agree with these points (and the sections on IP are interesting), I think that we are in the reckoning of VC where equity isn't the asset being traded and that places such @earnest capital can pave way for new ways of funding projects.
In full transparency, I expected more theory. tbh I am cube brain and am glad it wasn't theory, although I do wish it had delved into solutions a bit more and spent more time on potentially other interesting perspectives (although this might just be me wanting things outside the scope of book). What it does do, it does fantastically in holding a mirror to young startup enthusiasts disillusioned with the state of the world.
She ends with an overview of what we need to do in order to Abolish Silicon Valley, a detailed 5 topics section from culture to work to entrepreneurship. While I fundamentally agree with these points (and the sections on IP are interesting), I think that we are in the reckoning of VC where equity isn't the asset being traded and that places such @earnest capital can pave way for new ways of funding projects.
In full transparency, I expected more theory. tbh I am cube brain and am glad it wasn't theory, although I do wish it had delved into solutions a bit more and spent more time on potentially other interesting perspectives (although this might just be me wanting things outside the scope of book). What it does do, it does fantastically in holding a mirror to young startup enthusiasts disillusioned with the state of the world.
January 4, 2021
Bastante decepcionada porque aunque hay buenas ideas, toda la primera mitad del libro que es la historia de cómo monta su startup sinceramente me la habría ahorrado. No me importaba nada, me ha costado leerla porque sinceramente se la podría haber ventilado en 2,000 palabras en un artículo separado o en un capítulo suelto, no en doscientas y pico páginas. En general toda esa parte deja mucho tufo ingenieril, del palo de que el mundo tiene que darle las gracias por darse cuenta de las cosas de las que se ha dado cuenta, una persona tan lista como ella, y eso te acompaña y atufa un poco todo el resto del libro.
En general en la segunda mitad hay buenas ideas pero no son tampoco excepcionales ni únicas suyas, entonces tampoco entiendo muy bien qué la motivó a escribir un libro tan específico y con un título tan combativo. Bastante repelús también cuando cuenta que se dio cuenta de que el capitalismo era malo leyendo 200 libros al año, es que solo me hace pillarle más tirria.
Creo que puede ser un libro útil para otros ingenieros o para los amigos que se hizo en Google en su momento que se han sindicado ahora, pero si buscas algo de profundidad y de análisis sobre cómo funciona un poco el capitalismo este digital, this aint it.
En general en la segunda mitad hay buenas ideas pero no son tampoco excepcionales ni únicas suyas, entonces tampoco entiendo muy bien qué la motivó a escribir un libro tan específico y con un título tan combativo. Bastante repelús también cuando cuenta que se dio cuenta de que el capitalismo era malo leyendo 200 libros al año, es que solo me hace pillarle más tirria.
Creo que puede ser un libro útil para otros ingenieros o para los amigos que se hizo en Google en su momento que se han sindicado ahora, pero si buscas algo de profundidad y de análisis sobre cómo funciona un poco el capitalismo este digital, this aint it.
March 15, 2021
Interesting read about Liu’s journey from tech devotee to disillusionment but the books loses focus when it moves on to the solutions, which are many and varied but lack detailed explorations in the book. Topics subjected to whole books are covered in a paragraph and the end reads like a essay that knows it needs to reach a conclusion but has run out of words.
April 15, 2020
The tantrum of the underachieving kid who can't rise to the ambitions of mummy.
February 15, 2024
Most of the criticisms for this book stem from the fact that it's mostly a memoir. After reading this book I think the memoir is probably the best part of the book.
I'd recommend this book to anyone having any fleeting thought that maybe a cab share ride company being worth 100 billion in valuation may not be the most efficient use of resources.
I'd recommend this book to anyone having any fleeting thought that maybe a cab share ride company being worth 100 billion in valuation may not be the most efficient use of resources.
May 17, 2020
Part memoir of a technophile losing her faith in SV, part blueprint of how to move past the rampant hyper- technocapitalism we live under, 100% an essential read - especially for those who still believe.
Read
August 23, 2025I can forgive some of Liu’s ideas here in the name of honesty. While I find it absurd that someone so intelligent with coding could be so unbelievably stupid as to believe Elon Musk is a good person who has humanity’s interest at heart, or that UBI emerged from Silicon Valley because of the goodwill of tech people, I respect the honesty of admitting that.
What I don’t respect is the theft of actual progressive theoretical frameworks like abolition, with zero thought given to the topic in the book, so that the book sells more copies — for someone who wants to get rid of the profit incentive as a driving force, it’s funny to choose a misleading but captivating title so your book sells more. That’s not a “you can’t exist in society and critique it” type critique, but rather one that points out her own explicit choice to still do this, since she even acknowledges she chose the title mostly as a joke. For someone who got a masters in social inequality, that seems like a pretty poor reflection of her understanding of the history of important frameworks like abolition.
Overall, I still think it’s valuable to hear insights from someone deeply involved in the industry because they gain certain knowledge of its workings that the rest of us don’t have. Maybe even more importantly, the honesty involved in telling her story is essential for people to understand the ideology underlying Silicon Valley and the beliefs of those in it. But Liu either doesn’t understand the political theory she’s talking about or is trying to dumb it down for a particular audience, which is fine in theory but ends up misrepresenting it in practice.
What I don’t respect is the theft of actual progressive theoretical frameworks like abolition, with zero thought given to the topic in the book, so that the book sells more copies — for someone who wants to get rid of the profit incentive as a driving force, it’s funny to choose a misleading but captivating title so your book sells more. That’s not a “you can’t exist in society and critique it” type critique, but rather one that points out her own explicit choice to still do this, since she even acknowledges she chose the title mostly as a joke. For someone who got a masters in social inequality, that seems like a pretty poor reflection of her understanding of the history of important frameworks like abolition.
Overall, I still think it’s valuable to hear insights from someone deeply involved in the industry because they gain certain knowledge of its workings that the rest of us don’t have. Maybe even more importantly, the honesty involved in telling her story is essential for people to understand the ideology underlying Silicon Valley and the beliefs of those in it. But Liu either doesn’t understand the political theory she’s talking about or is trying to dumb it down for a particular audience, which is fine in theory but ends up misrepresenting it in practice.
May 30, 2021
Both a compelling personal memoir and a hard-hitting Marxist critique of the tech industry, Abolish Silicon Valley covers a lot of ground in just over 200 pages.
Wendy Liu shows how the ideology embodied in internet culture, Silicon Valley workplaces, and the world of tech start-ups obscures a clear-sighted view of reality. Counter to these views, Liu looks at how tech workers, despite being privileged, are first and foremost workers who are denied both substantive control over their lives and the right to engage in socially useful and ethically just work. She also shows how they are starting to organise along these lines.
Liu also demonstrates through an honest portrayal of her own experiences how the misogyny and racism of internet culture can be internalised, leading to a warped Ayn Rand-style worldview which venerates inequality and hierarchy in the guise of 'meritocracy', 'efficiency', and 'disruption'.
A worthwhile book which punctures the self-serving rationalisations of the tech giants and makes a powerful case for democratic control of technological development.
Wendy Liu shows how the ideology embodied in internet culture, Silicon Valley workplaces, and the world of tech start-ups obscures a clear-sighted view of reality. Counter to these views, Liu looks at how tech workers, despite being privileged, are first and foremost workers who are denied both substantive control over their lives and the right to engage in socially useful and ethically just work. She also shows how they are starting to organise along these lines.
Liu also demonstrates through an honest portrayal of her own experiences how the misogyny and racism of internet culture can be internalised, leading to a warped Ayn Rand-style worldview which venerates inequality and hierarchy in the guise of 'meritocracy', 'efficiency', and 'disruption'.
A worthwhile book which punctures the self-serving rationalisations of the tech giants and makes a powerful case for democratic control of technological development.
May 16, 2020
This is an exceptionally well written and engaging book. The title is a little sensational as the author herself admits, but the story she has to tell is both unique and, by her account, very common. In a nutshell, it is an autobiography tracing the author's life journey from a self-taught programming nerd who volunteered on open source projects in high school to a Randian hero entrepreneur chasing millions of dollars and her place in the pantheon of tech gods. She finally crash lands when her nascent start up fails. But unlike some she didn't just dust herself off and try again. She shook off the studied disdain many in STEM fields have for the "soft sciences" and went looking for answers. While some may dismiss her account as sour grapes in the wake of her start up's failure, I think the honest testimony of someone like her is sorely needed because she speaks with far more authenticity than the usual bevy of ivory tower academics bemoaning neoliberalism. Her journey to an anti-capitalist and human centred view on tech is all the more engaging because of this. How can you run a human centred open source program when the entire system is built on the logic of kill or be killed? If you don't patent your ideas, someone else will, and they may well turn around and sue you for infringing on their intellectual property. Despite her sharp critique, she aims not at the tech workers, or even necessarily the CEOs and entrepreneurs, but at the system.
Through her personal journey, Liu goes from being someone who "assumed that meritocracy was a concept invented in Silicon Valley in the 2000s", to questioning the very fundamentals of the modern day world economy. Why is it that Google, a company who's former motto was "Don't be evil", has armies of low paid workers on their campuses who have no hope of ever living like the software developers they cater to? Why is it that a piece of software that plays fast and loose with the public's personal data - with no greater social utility than helping to push more adverts- can garner millions upon millions of dollars in capital? All while the majority of Americans cannot afford a sudden $400 emergency. I have to say that personally I was green with envy when I found out how much an entry level programmer at Google makes. And she turned them down! That's just how powerful, and just how much money the tech sector holds for those who can break into the inner circle. Liu provides insight into just how much the industry can warp the goals and expectations of people like herself - she started off drawn to open source community programming, and ended up chasing money and renown - she was even insulted by a mere million dollar offer to buy out their company after working at it for all of 2 years. A mere million dollars.
I think this book is essential reading for anyone interested in tech, and especially for those who work in it. For a long time tech portrayed itself as a meritocratic almost utopian profession; a place that would break down the historical boundaries of nation, race, class, and language. While there are certainly more academic and theoretically rigorous analyses of these phenomena, Liu's work is an essential primer for the average reader because she exposes the lie at the heart of Big Tech in simple non-academic language. Silicon Valley exists in a flawed world and cannot separate itself from that. In fact much of it consciously reproduces the flaws and inequities of the outside world while explicitly claiming to be immune to them (just take a look at diversity in Silicon Valley). Tech companys are susceptible to all the corrupting influences and behaviours we see in other sectors: reliance on precarious workers, discrimination, racism, enviromental pollution, corruption, union busting, misclassifying workers, tax evasion. The list goes on. The industry has simply hidden behind it's relatively luxurious office conditions and eccentric CEOs to hide this fact.
The book is very much the story of how the scales fell from her eyes and how she came to reconcile the public image with the mundane, sometimes even corrupt, reality. But Liu does not take aim at her comrades in tech, in her closing chapters she goes further than others by tying these failures into the prevailing economic system: capitalism. This draws the critique away from a narrow moralistic condemnation found in much centre-left analyses. It removes the contradiction of arguing for "more female drone pilots" or "more ethical CEOs" when the system weeds out such contenders before they even get started. This is important because it means that those who make up the industry can avoid the guilt/rage trap. The trap of either sinking into inward looking guilt, versus reflexively raging against those who call out the failings of their industry. The systemic critique recognises the limits of individual culpability: no one programmer at Google can change the company, and quitting in moral outrage to go live in the woods is obviously useless. But if all of the so called Googlers refused to work on unethical projects, as they have begun to do, then there is real hope for change. Tech workers aren't the problem, in fact they're the only one's who can help solve it.
Liu tops things off by outlining how tech can move forward to a more open source and tightly regulated future, in which intellectual property is always utilised for the public good, and excess profits are a sign of market failure not success. While these ideas are painted in broad strokes and often inspired by other places - a surprising repeat source is the UK Labour Party - it's a breath of fresh air to have someone who also has some idea of the solutions they're looking for. Overall a very enlightening and readable account of the tech sector. If you liked this, and wish to know more about the push for more ethical tech, you may find the online essay "The Making of the tech Worker Movement" very valuable.
Through her personal journey, Liu goes from being someone who "assumed that meritocracy was a concept invented in Silicon Valley in the 2000s", to questioning the very fundamentals of the modern day world economy. Why is it that Google, a company who's former motto was "Don't be evil", has armies of low paid workers on their campuses who have no hope of ever living like the software developers they cater to? Why is it that a piece of software that plays fast and loose with the public's personal data - with no greater social utility than helping to push more adverts- can garner millions upon millions of dollars in capital? All while the majority of Americans cannot afford a sudden $400 emergency. I have to say that personally I was green with envy when I found out how much an entry level programmer at Google makes. And she turned them down! That's just how powerful, and just how much money the tech sector holds for those who can break into the inner circle. Liu provides insight into just how much the industry can warp the goals and expectations of people like herself - she started off drawn to open source community programming, and ended up chasing money and renown - she was even insulted by a mere million dollar offer to buy out their company after working at it for all of 2 years. A mere million dollars.
I think this book is essential reading for anyone interested in tech, and especially for those who work in it. For a long time tech portrayed itself as a meritocratic almost utopian profession; a place that would break down the historical boundaries of nation, race, class, and language. While there are certainly more academic and theoretically rigorous analyses of these phenomena, Liu's work is an essential primer for the average reader because she exposes the lie at the heart of Big Tech in simple non-academic language. Silicon Valley exists in a flawed world and cannot separate itself from that. In fact much of it consciously reproduces the flaws and inequities of the outside world while explicitly claiming to be immune to them (just take a look at diversity in Silicon Valley). Tech companys are susceptible to all the corrupting influences and behaviours we see in other sectors: reliance on precarious workers, discrimination, racism, enviromental pollution, corruption, union busting, misclassifying workers, tax evasion. The list goes on. The industry has simply hidden behind it's relatively luxurious office conditions and eccentric CEOs to hide this fact.
The book is very much the story of how the scales fell from her eyes and how she came to reconcile the public image with the mundane, sometimes even corrupt, reality. But Liu does not take aim at her comrades in tech, in her closing chapters she goes further than others by tying these failures into the prevailing economic system: capitalism. This draws the critique away from a narrow moralistic condemnation found in much centre-left analyses. It removes the contradiction of arguing for "more female drone pilots" or "more ethical CEOs" when the system weeds out such contenders before they even get started. This is important because it means that those who make up the industry can avoid the guilt/rage trap. The trap of either sinking into inward looking guilt, versus reflexively raging against those who call out the failings of their industry. The systemic critique recognises the limits of individual culpability: no one programmer at Google can change the company, and quitting in moral outrage to go live in the woods is obviously useless. But if all of the so called Googlers refused to work on unethical projects, as they have begun to do, then there is real hope for change. Tech workers aren't the problem, in fact they're the only one's who can help solve it.
Liu tops things off by outlining how tech can move forward to a more open source and tightly regulated future, in which intellectual property is always utilised for the public good, and excess profits are a sign of market failure not success. While these ideas are painted in broad strokes and often inspired by other places - a surprising repeat source is the UK Labour Party - it's a breath of fresh air to have someone who also has some idea of the solutions they're looking for. Overall a very enlightening and readable account of the tech sector. If you liked this, and wish to know more about the push for more ethical tech, you may find the online essay "The Making of the tech Worker Movement" very valuable.
October 18, 2021
I enjoyed reading Wendy Liu’s memoir where she explains how slowly through her career she became disillusioned with Silicon Valley. Wendy started in tech as a software engineering intern at Google then transitioned to founding an advertising startup, and then ultimately went to London to study the economics of inequality.
I enjoyed thinking through some of her observations on tech: the stark difference in pay between engineers that work at big companies and the contractors that shuttle them to work; how startups are designed to earn a large ROI for investors (and not, ultimately, to “do good” for society); how the users of tech have largely no say in what happens to the products they use (there’s no recourse to a business that decides to delete their users’ data); etc, etc
I like how casual and honest this memoir was and ultimately found this book relatable. My friends and I have talked through similar ideas - though not as articulated as well :) - and enjoyed reading her political opinions on tech mature . If you feel ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ about tech in general you’d probably like this book (but you may disagree with it a bit)
I enjoyed thinking through some of her observations on tech: the stark difference in pay between engineers that work at big companies and the contractors that shuttle them to work; how startups are designed to earn a large ROI for investors (and not, ultimately, to “do good” for society); how the users of tech have largely no say in what happens to the products they use (there’s no recourse to a business that decides to delete their users’ data); etc, etc
I like how casual and honest this memoir was and ultimately found this book relatable. My friends and I have talked through similar ideas - though not as articulated as well :) - and enjoyed reading her political opinions on tech mature . If you feel ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ about tech in general you’d probably like this book (but you may disagree with it a bit)
May 19, 2020
2/3 memoir charting Liu's journey from her steadfast belief in the myths of Silicon Valley and startup culture to her current activism, 1/3 manifesto outlining a public policy framework for curbing the excesses of capitalism with regards to the American tech industry.
Though the title is misleading (i.e. the work is more memoir than manifesto), I appreciated Liu providing her own experiences in the tech industry as context for the ideology she now espouses. In particular, she lucidly demonstrates how the rationales of individuals, such as herself, result in the greater pathology of the industry, for example in the justification of gross valuations as a reflection of a start-up's socially beneficial work. As a software developer who had barebones education in the ethical implications of my work, I'd especially recommend this to anyone in the tech industry seeking an accessible, introductory understanding of the societal context in which the industry operates.
Though the title is misleading (i.e. the work is more memoir than manifesto), I appreciated Liu providing her own experiences in the tech industry as context for the ideology she now espouses. In particular, she lucidly demonstrates how the rationales of individuals, such as herself, result in the greater pathology of the industry, for example in the justification of gross valuations as a reflection of a start-up's socially beneficial work. As a software developer who had barebones education in the ethical implications of my work, I'd especially recommend this to anyone in the tech industry seeking an accessible, introductory understanding of the societal context in which the industry operates.
January 7, 2023
Creo que entiendo el propósito de la primera parte del libro como una manera de identificar el carácter de la narradora y el background de su historia, porque supongo que de esta manera se legitiman sus opiniones. Sin embargo, desde mi perspectiva pudieron ser un capítulo y no la mitad del libro. (Pero hay quienes aman leer las historias de la gente que ha incursionado en el mundo Tech, así que esto puede ser para gusto y deleite de ese nicho).
La segunda parte en cambio me resulto interesante y audaz, un poco imprecisa en términos teóricos de filosofía económica y política pero tremendamente aguda en apreciaciones.
Es un libro que me encantaría discutir porque como todo aquello que se abriga bajo esta bandera antisistema o anticapitalismo, en ocasiones parece utopía y en ocasiones apocalipsis. Y creo que en realidad, hay mucho más por proponer y pensar.
Me gustó pero quiero más.
La segunda parte en cambio me resulto interesante y audaz, un poco imprecisa en términos teóricos de filosofía económica y política pero tremendamente aguda en apreciaciones.
Es un libro que me encantaría discutir porque como todo aquello que se abriga bajo esta bandera antisistema o anticapitalismo, en ocasiones parece utopía y en ocasiones apocalipsis. Y creo que en realidad, hay mucho más por proponer y pensar.
Me gustó pero quiero más.
October 2, 2020
The title was provocative, and the prologue chapter told me this book would focus on 'the negative consequences of technological development under capitalism: the harmful tendencies that are magnified, and the alternatives that are lost' (p 4). Sounded cool!
What then followed was a very detailed memoir about her failed start-up. It was great and I was hooked into her story, even though it didn't relate that closely to the premise advertised. Strangely, when Liu eventually discusses head-on the tech industry's relationship to capitalism in the book's closing pages, I actually found it a bit repetitive and underwhelming. I thought this 'analysis' section had a lot less flair than her describing the highs and lows of her start-up career.
While it felt like 3/4 of this book was context and 1/4 was argument, those first 3/4 were still great and make this a worthwhile read.
What then followed was a very detailed memoir about her failed start-up. It was great and I was hooked into her story, even though it didn't relate that closely to the premise advertised. Strangely, when Liu eventually discusses head-on the tech industry's relationship to capitalism in the book's closing pages, I actually found it a bit repetitive and underwhelming. I thought this 'analysis' section had a lot less flair than her describing the highs and lows of her start-up career.
While it felt like 3/4 of this book was context and 1/4 was argument, those first 3/4 were still great and make this a worthwhile read.
January 17, 2021
A slow, but interesting insight into the inner workings of silicon valley start-ups.
The title, if a little misleading, holds true to the anti-capitalist sentiment throughout. This shines a light on the societal problems caused by capitalism and perpetuated by silicon valley's tech sector. The final chapters offer some thoughtful direction for the future, with the honest caveat that it won't be quick, or easy to achieve.
Definitely worth a read, especially if you're new to the idea of the capitalist critique.
The title, if a little misleading, holds true to the anti-capitalist sentiment throughout. This shines a light on the societal problems caused by capitalism and perpetuated by silicon valley's tech sector. The final chapters offer some thoughtful direction for the future, with the honest caveat that it won't be quick, or easy to achieve.
Definitely worth a read, especially if you're new to the idea of the capitalist critique.
May 18, 2022
As someone who works in healthcare I've only ever had a surface level understanding of how the tech industry works. I've heard of people who work in the field becoming disillusioned although I never truly understood why. Reading this book was very illuminating and I can now see why more and more people are moving away from the status quo. The memoir format was also a pleasant surprise and Wendy's transformation is truly fascinating. The book is very well written and well researched. Highly recommend!
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