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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
Disclaimer: I wrote this review at the 75% mark of this book. I'm going to finish it in the next couple of days, but I wanted to get this out now. If the final quarter changes my mind, I'll revise this review.
What a whiny, self-absorbed, entitled, hypocritical SOB Dan Lyons is. I don't know the guy, so all I have to make that determination are his own words in the form of this book.
I could take his hot takes, his winding shifting morality, his illogical decisionmaking/rationalizing, and most everything else if only he didn't look at everything through the green-eyed glasses of a myopic 8-year old. Everything is filtered through the simple logic of: "If it helps me, it's good - if it doesn't help me, either it's bad or it okay to ridicule it."
There are some good passages here. Quite a few, and some are extremely enjoyable to read. But it's like dropping a bag of peanuts in the mud, then trying to convince yourself it's worth the trouble to pick them out and wipe them clean. Hint: It's not worth it.
I spent 5 years working for a couple of tech startups. A lot of what Lyons says here rings true. I just wish it was another voice making those observations. This voice that wrote this book is too much like an older version of what Dan spends 60% of this book complaining about - 20something frat boys with limited self awareness and unlimited id.
Was this review too harsh? Dan, call me. We'll talk it out over a drink.
EDIT:
After completing this, my opinion remains the same. While the author is not incorrect in most of his statements, his personality grates on me. I don't want that to come off as a personal assessment, because it could be only the persona he wishes to use for this memoir. For all I know, he could be a great guy. But between the covers of this book, he comes off as an entitled maniputalistit sob that I couldn't work up any sympathy for, and believe me, he tries very hard to generate sympathy for his horrible plight foisted upon his undeserving self.
One material thing that bothered me a lot is Lyons attempt to present his situation as some sort of discrimination event on par with racism and misogyny. It was subtle at first, but before long he was swinging that discrimination stick all over place.
Our poor hero feels out of place in a workplace where 95% of the employees are under 30, and he wants to convince us the reason is because of age discrimination. However, the guy that takes over as his boss midway through the book is over 40 and seems to have no trouble fitting in. And later we learn of other 40+ employees who seemingly have no problems at the job.
While trying to play up his age-discrimination angle, Lyons repeatedly mentions how there are no URMs at the company, and practically no (white) women in upper management. it all comes off as a ridiculous attempt generate sympathy or vilify the company. Yes, the lack of women and minorities at such companies is terrible, should be called out, and should be corrected. However, that has nothing to do with the author's personal troubles at the company and it was shamefully pathetic for Lyons to make repeated attempts to convince us he was making a legitimate claim.
Besides, it was unnecessary. His experiences stood on their own. The company's personnel missteps don't need to be contrasted against his experiences, and are completely aside from his experience.
What a whiny, self-absorbed, entitled, hypocritical SOB Dan Lyons is. I don't know the guy, so all I have to make that determination are his own words in the form of this book.
I could take his hot takes, his winding shifting morality, his illogical decisionmaking/rationalizing, and most everything else if only he didn't look at everything through the green-eyed glasses of a myopic 8-year old. Everything is filtered through the simple logic of: "If it helps me, it's good - if it doesn't help me, either it's bad or it okay to ridicule it."
There are some good passages here. Quite a few, and some are extremely enjoyable to read. But it's like dropping a bag of peanuts in the mud, then trying to convince yourself it's worth the trouble to pick them out and wipe them clean. Hint: It's not worth it.
I spent 5 years working for a couple of tech startups. A lot of what Lyons says here rings true. I just wish it was another voice making those observations. This voice that wrote this book is too much like an older version of what Dan spends 60% of this book complaining about - 20something frat boys with limited self awareness and unlimited id.
Was this review too harsh? Dan, call me. We'll talk it out over a drink.
EDIT:
After completing this, my opinion remains the same. While the author is not incorrect in most of his statements, his personality grates on me. I don't want that to come off as a personal assessment, because it could be only the persona he wishes to use for this memoir. For all I know, he could be a great guy. But between the covers of this book, he comes off as an entitled maniputalistit sob that I couldn't work up any sympathy for, and believe me, he tries very hard to generate sympathy for his horrible plight foisted upon his undeserving self.
One material thing that bothered me a lot is Lyons attempt to present his situation as some sort of discrimination event on par with racism and misogyny. It was subtle at first, but before long he was swinging that discrimination stick all over place.
Our poor hero feels out of place in a workplace where 95% of the employees are under 30, and he wants to convince us the reason is because of age discrimination. However, the guy that takes over as his boss midway through the book is over 40 and seems to have no trouble fitting in. And later we learn of other 40+ employees who seemingly have no problems at the job.
While trying to play up his age-discrimination angle, Lyons repeatedly mentions how there are no URMs at the company, and practically no (white) women in upper management. it all comes off as a ridiculous attempt generate sympathy or vilify the company. Yes, the lack of women and minorities at such companies is terrible, should be called out, and should be corrected. However, that has nothing to do with the author's personal troubles at the company and it was shamefully pathetic for Lyons to make repeated attempts to convince us he was making a legitimate claim.
Besides, it was unnecessary. His experiences stood on their own. The company's personnel missteps don't need to be contrasted against his experiences, and are completely aside from his experience.
wow. hilarious, disturbing, informative, eye-opening, a pleasure to read. I stayed up all night plowing through it - twice! Admittedly, he's very, very judgmental; not fairly at all times... but it's funny.
A journalist goes to work at a startup only to find these guys have no idea what they want to do with him, or with their company for that matter. The place is utter chaos and thriving there does not depend on merit but on allegiance.
All of Dan Lyons mishaps and attitude aside, a lot can be taken away from the book when it comes to the rise of toxic tech bro / everything is awesome start up culture that is sometimes borderline cultish. The availability of large pools of capital have led to an “anything goes” rat race between VCs to snatch any startup that looks the part - even if they have no revenue or a decent product. It becomes a business where appearances are much more important than what’s actually there.
All of Dan Lyons mishaps and attitude aside, a lot can be taken away from the book when it comes to the rise of toxic tech bro / everything is awesome start up culture that is sometimes borderline cultish. The availability of large pools of capital have led to an “anything goes” rat race between VCs to snatch any startup that looks the part - even if they have no revenue or a decent product. It becomes a business where appearances are much more important than what’s actually there.
Dan Lyons (a writer on HBO's Silicon Valley) lost his job at Newsweek, in his 50s, and wound up in the tech industry at a start-up called HubSpot, a company run almost exclusively by white guys under 30 or 35. This is his comical takedown of the industry, or more specifically of HubSpot: its culture, its discriminating practices, its clownishness, and its employees who drank the kool aid. The book is funny, the insight into Silicon Valley companies is frightening (e.g., the scope of their influence on the economy and on their business practices), and the description of HubSpot should convince anyone who uses their software to stop immediately. Highly recommended in general, and I'd say it's a must read for Silicon Valley fans and those in tech.
An ok read... Interesting in lot places. But narration could have been better. Lots of repetitive info and at times feels like a personal grumble.
As someone who's been in a few start ups, I can see Dan's story as well as a the other side. This makes this book really kind of awesome. Stating that the cardinal sin of a start up is not drinking the kool aid is so true.
An interesting inside view of a start-up. If what Lyons writes is true, what a shameful waste of money and resources. Yes, of course good ideas should be fostered and supported. But after reading "Disrupted" I'm left thinking that the start-up world encourages the worst behavior from greedy people without caring whether anything of value will result. There's also little concern about the impact these very expensive failed experiments have on the country's general financial health.
Early on in this book I would have given it maybe 2 stars. It seemed a bit too whiny and complainy and I kind of wondered how the guy was going to ever get another job anywhere else after writing this book. But the more I read of Lyons' experience as a 50-something in a cultish startup full of 20-somethings the more I understood how he could become so bitter about the experience. I'd never heard of HubSpot, the startup he worked for, but I guess that's because they do marketing SaaS for Marketeers - yeah, sounds sketchy. Lyons recounts his ~18 months working for HubSpot. There's a lot of humor in Lyons' retelling, but you also get the distinct impression that it wasn't so funny actually living it. The company doesn't make any profit, has huge losses and high cost of sales and yet somehow still manages to go public just before running out of money and be valued in the low $Billions. While I've kind of suspected that we're in another tech bubble, after reading this account I'm pretty certain we are. Also, the Epilog takes a dark turn: It seems that higher ups at HubSpot were not really eager for Lyons' book to come out and were willing to do legally and ethically sketchy things to find out what was in it before it was published.
As a SaaS employee, I loved reading this book for its takedown of aspects of our industry that I find vapid and borderline unethical. That said, HubSpot is still going strong half a decade later and by all accounts appears to be one of the best tech companies to work for, which makes me question Lyons’ assessments and motives, and in turn question everything I read here in retrospect.
If I could give this a 3.5, I would. Entertaining, especially for someone over 40. Exactly what I expected it would be.