num_pages: 281
description: The prescient page-turning account of a journey in Silicon Valley: a defining memoir of our digital ageIn her mid-twenties at the height of tech industry idealism Anna Wienerstuck broke and looking for meaning in her work like any good millennial--left a job in book publishing for the promise of the new digital economy. She moved from New York to San Francisco where she landed at a big-data startup in the heart of the Silicon Valley bubble: a world of surreal extravagance dubious success and fresh-faced entrepreneurs hell-bent on domination glory and of course progress.Anna arrived amidst a massive cultural shift as the tech industry rapidly transformed into a locus of wealth and power rivaling Wall Street. But amid the company ski vacations and in-office speakeasies boyish camaraderie and ride-or-die corporate fealty a new Silicon Valley began to emerge: one in far over its head one that enriched itself at the expense of the idyllic future it claimed to be building.Part coming-age-story part portrait of an already-bygone era Anna Wieners memoir is a rare first-person glimpse into high-flying reckless startup culture at a time of unchecked ambition unregulated surveillance wild fortune and accelerating political power. With wit candor and heart Anna deftly charts the tech industrys shift from self-appointed world savior to democracy-endangering liability alongside a personal narrative of aspiration ambivalence and disillusionment.Unsparing and incisive Uncanny Valley is a cautionary tale and a revelatory interrogation of a world reckoning with consequences its unwitting designers are only beginning to understand.
language: English
title: Uncanny Valley: A Memoir
publisher: MCD