ericrosenfield 's review for:

Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble by Dan Lyons

5.0

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A lot of the negative reviews quibble with this book and the author--that he seems like a jerk who sees his co-workers as bozos and dipshits, that he's not really saying anything new by pointing out agism, sexism, and racism in Silicon Valley (as if this didn't need to be continually pointed out)--these reviews miss the point of the book entirely. Which is that this is a book about how Silicon Valley's lip service to making work fun and changing the world and giving meaning to people's lives is a crock that exists to maximize value for investors and founders at the expense of workers.

Or to quote the book itself: "This is the New Work, but really it is just a new twist on an old story, the one about labor being exploited by capital. The difference is that this time the exploitation is done with a big smiley face. Everything about this new workplace, from the crazy décor to the change-the-world rhetoric to the hero's journey mythology and the perks that are not really perks--all of these things exist for one reason, which is to drive down the cost of labor so that investors can maximize their return."

And that's why the book deserves 5 stars.