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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
This book was hilarious. Dan gets a little bitter and speculative at the end, but the first half is absolutely fantastic. Would recommend :)
my god, this guy is annoying. i mean, i wasn't expecting to LOVE this book, it was more of a know-thy-enemy move (i live in the SF bay area) and i was curious. but oh. my. god. while the company does sound incredibly frustrating and poorly run and full of nincompoops, it's far worse to hear this guy whine about how he's not free to make creepy comments about his 19-year-old german au pair in public spaces, lest somebody get offended! wahh! hey, did you know this guy used to work at NEWSWEEK?!?! no way! no really, did you know he worked at newsweek? he worked at NEWSWEEK. he'll tell you about 50 more times and it's his main evidence that he deserves nothing but the most undying respect of all these whippersnappers.
i've worked in jobs where i was a bad fit. i get it. it sucks. it taints your whole life. but maybe, maybe, maaaybe you are a tiny bit of the problem too?!
i've worked in jobs where i was a bad fit. i get it. it sucks. it taints your whole life. but maybe, maybe, maaaybe you are a tiny bit of the problem too?!
This review was originally posted on Bedtime BookwormI'm so surprised I loved this book as much as I did! I hardly ever read non-fiction, but I picked this one up because it was a work book club pick. Even when I picked it up I wasn't sure if I was really interested in the topic, but boy was I wrong. First of all, this book was way funnier than I had anticipated, although I shouldn't be surprised after learning that Dan Lyons is one of the writers for the HBO show Silicon Valley. This book was not only funny but also taught me a lot and gave me a different perspective on the tech industry and start ups. If you work in tech or are at all interested in learning about how (some) start ups function I definitely recommend checking out this book! If anything it will put a smile on your face. :)
I get it. I’m an old guy working in high tech, but I’ve always been here and in Canada we’re at a slight remove from the unicorn madness infecting some other tech centres. I can understand Dan’s snark and I’ve seen evidence of ruthless backstabbing, hi-tech mean-girling, hare-brained revelations from egotistical narcissists, Kool-aid slurping wage slaves, frat boy brogrammers and more - his just goes to eleven.
But calling out the bro-coders out for their frat boy antics then gleefully recounting the dick, fart and shit jokes you live on in the writers room seems disingenuous. I understand you calling out the 20-somethings for their lack of experience, but can you please not mention you were kind of a big deal at Newsweek again?
I’m not sure what I wanted from this story. Maybe more snark or some sort of narrative so that it didn’t just feel like a book-length bitch session. Dan manages to be at a complete remove from everyone involved in the story so that it feels like he’s just lobbing spitballs at the tech industry now that he’s safely hidden behind the protective apron of Hollywood.
Maybe if you work in hi-tech and still can’t explain what it is you do to your folks you can send them this so they get a feel for how far removed from reality the crazy farm can get.
But calling out the bro-coders out for their frat boy antics then gleefully recounting the dick, fart and shit jokes you live on in the writers room seems disingenuous. I understand you calling out the 20-somethings for their lack of experience, but can you please not mention you were kind of a big deal at Newsweek again?
I’m not sure what I wanted from this story. Maybe more snark or some sort of narrative so that it didn’t just feel like a book-length bitch session. Dan manages to be at a complete remove from everyone involved in the story so that it feels like he’s just lobbing spitballs at the tech industry now that he’s safely hidden behind the protective apron of Hollywood.
Maybe if you work in hi-tech and still can’t explain what it is you do to your folks you can send them this so they get a feel for how far removed from reality the crazy farm can get.
Entertaining (and terrifying!) book, but MAN is the author negative. Would have liked to see him take a bit more responsibility for his own choices at work. Sure, the culture described here is deliciously mockable, but surely he can see how mocking everything and everyone might not always go over so well.
The author is an asshole, but that doesn't make the world he describes any less disturbing or bizarre. And yet, a world in which the richest companies become rich by not making any money, where fitting into the corporate culture is paramount, and candy is a perk fits all too well with one where one Presidential candidate proves himself trustworthy by bombastically lying.
This is a world of the Dream, of castles in the air that just have to exist long enough for their builders to profit and pity the people who try to move in. And worse it is a world of the high school cafeteria--fit in, find a niche to hunker down in, or be miserable. A world where it doesn't matter what is real or what is said, but who says it.
The writing is engaging and humorous. The abusive relationship that develops is horrifying. The epilogue a bit chilling.
It's worth reading and reads quickly. Several parts viscerally disgusted me so that I curled over in my chair and scrunched up my face.
Part of me is glad my work is not like this. Then I remember the failed wellness room and the gaming system no one ever uses and wonder.
This is a world of the Dream, of castles in the air that just have to exist long enough for their builders to profit and pity the people who try to move in. And worse it is a world of the high school cafeteria--fit in, find a niche to hunker down in, or be miserable. A world where it doesn't matter what is real or what is said, but who says it.
The writing is engaging and humorous. The abusive relationship that develops is horrifying. The epilogue a bit chilling.
It's worth reading and reads quickly. Several parts viscerally disgusted me so that I curled over in my chair and scrunched up my face.
Part of me is glad my work is not like this. Then I remember the failed wellness room and the gaming system no one ever uses and wonder.
The conceit of this book is that a tech journalist, implicitly trained to spot problems, gets a job to a startup and finds many more than he bargained for. The story is interesting because HubSpot is a complete shitshow of a company, with a weird crunchy cult-like culture to boot, and Lyons is trained to take down a place like this. It's funny hearing about what a mess this place is, but...
All startups are shitshows, and many of them manage to be enormously successful. Much of the disaster does not make the newspapers because, as Lyon admits when trying to help the CEO get prepped for a New York Times interview, journalists try to pry any negative information out of CEO's mouths, forcing said CEO to spout bromides to avoid negative press.* But, just because the place is a disaster, it does not mean it's not successful. Given Lyon's previous stints in stably dying media companies, it must be a shock going to a place like HubSpot, but that doesn't mean it's bad per se. In this case, however, it actually might have been a bad place, as an event at the end of the book suggests that HubSpot may have been covering up some corporate malfeasance.
I do think the book is an accurate reflection of a certain type of startup, whose main value derives from the marketing department. Much of what they do feels to me eye-rollingly stupid, but this is an important part of the US economy, and something that will not go away in the near future. I wonder if Dan Lyons would have been more comfortable at a more engineering-focused startup, as they tend to share the dark humor that he does.
I think the book is worth reading if you are interested in what a marketing-focused startup looks like day-to-day, but I would not uncritically accept the author's viewpoint on the experience.
* NB athletes rarely say anything interesting because of the same effect
All startups are shitshows, and many of them manage to be enormously successful. Much of the disaster does not make the newspapers because, as Lyon admits when trying to help the CEO get prepped for a New York Times interview, journalists try to pry any negative information out of CEO's mouths, forcing said CEO to spout bromides to avoid negative press.* But, just because the place is a disaster, it does not mean it's not successful. Given Lyon's previous stints in stably dying media companies, it must be a shock going to a place like HubSpot, but that doesn't mean it's bad per se. In this case, however, it actually might have been a bad place, as an event at the end of the book suggests that HubSpot may have been covering up some corporate malfeasance.
I do think the book is an accurate reflection of a certain type of startup, whose main value derives from the marketing department. Much of what they do feels to me eye-rollingly stupid, but this is an important part of the US economy, and something that will not go away in the near future. I wonder if Dan Lyons would have been more comfortable at a more engineering-focused startup, as they tend to share the dark humor that he does.
I think the book is worth reading if you are interested in what a marketing-focused startup looks like day-to-day, but I would not uncritically accept the author's viewpoint on the experience.
* NB athletes rarely say anything interesting because of the same effect
I'm maybe a decade younger than Lyons, and I know firsthand the struggles of finding work in the tech industry when you're over 40. I used to think I was a bit of a curmudgeon. Turns out, I've got nothing on this guy.
This book's an easy read, it's (mostly) enjoyable and (sometimes) trenchant and smart. HubSpot sounds like a seriously dysfunctional place, Trotsky was an unmitigated nightmare of a boss. But...there's a little too much "I work at a zoo, let's throw shit at these monkeys!" happening, and there are some telling instances where Lyons is overly cruel to or dismissive of people that probably don't deserve it (the blog ladies, for example - he does eventually admit that they are doing what they are asked to do, and doing it well, but it's a grudging admission and he buries the lede).
He's petty about small things in a way that makes him sound like that always-complaining co-worker you avoid, peeing in everyone's Cheerios and then wondering why no-one wants to have breakfast with them. In the face of all the dysfunction, harping on about small, harmless stuff is a little bizarre (the sincere but over-effusive pep messages exchanged between young and enthused co-workers were surely not worth the vitriol he spent on them). Stuff like that, coupled with some of the things he said in meetings, and his utter conviction that he knows better than everyone else at HubSpot about pretty much everything, makes him a lot harder to root for.
Maybe that doesn't matter, maybe he is smarter than them all, but, as a woman working in tech, I had a few too many eyerolls of recognition, a few too many "Really, now?" raised eyebrows and a hard-to-dispel feeling that if HubSpot had made Dan Lyons feel appreciated enough, this book may never have happened at all.
This book's an easy read, it's (mostly) enjoyable and (sometimes) trenchant and smart. HubSpot sounds like a seriously dysfunctional place, Trotsky was an unmitigated nightmare of a boss. But...there's a little too much "I work at a zoo, let's throw shit at these monkeys!" happening, and there are some telling instances where Lyons is overly cruel to or dismissive of people that probably don't deserve it (the blog ladies, for example - he does eventually admit that they are doing what they are asked to do, and doing it well, but it's a grudging admission and he buries the lede).
He's petty about small things in a way that makes him sound like that always-complaining co-worker you avoid, peeing in everyone's Cheerios and then wondering why no-one wants to have breakfast with them. In the face of all the dysfunction, harping on about small, harmless stuff is a little bizarre (the sincere but over-effusive pep messages exchanged between young and enthused co-workers were surely not worth the vitriol he spent on them). Stuff like that, coupled with some of the things he said in meetings, and his utter conviction that he knows better than everyone else at HubSpot about pretty much everything, makes him a lot harder to root for.
Maybe that doesn't matter, maybe he is smarter than them all, but, as a woman working in tech, I had a few too many eyerolls of recognition, a few too many "Really, now?" raised eyebrows and a hard-to-dispel feeling that if HubSpot had made Dan Lyons feel appreciated enough, this book may never have happened at all.
Couldn't put it down. I alternated between laughing and guessing who everyone really is. I could relate to so much of this...