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A review by tonyzale
Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble by Dan Lyons
2.0
A successful, respected tech journalist loses his job at Newsweek and decides to try and hit it big at HubSpot, an internet “remarketing” startup (read: spam factory). The author satisfyingly skewers the many inane aspects of their workplace culture: focusing on the ”delightion” of the users they are spamming, using the euphemism of “graduate” to describe those who have been fired, evaluating whether new ideas are “1+1=3” enough, striving to develop a personality that is completely “HubSpotty”. For a few chapters, this concept really works. The author is also a contributor to HBO’s Silicon Valley; he clearly has his finger on the pulse of all that makes the tech industry ridiculous.
I spent half the book laughing along with him, until I started wondering why he was sticking around. Why would the author put himself through this cognitive dissonance, especially when he suggests he has other opportunities? He ridicules the company’s business model while writing memos on ways to improve the corporate blog. He despises the company’s office politics but is depressed when no one respects him. At many points when I empathized with his struggle, he’d inevitably mention again that he still wanted to try and hit an IPO jackpot. I don’t begrudge that pursuit, but the empathy does evaporate a bit.
I spent half the book laughing along with him, until I started wondering why he was sticking around. Why would the author put himself through this cognitive dissonance, especially when he suggests he has other opportunities? He ridicules the company’s business model while writing memos on ways to improve the corporate blog. He despises the company’s office politics but is depressed when no one respects him. At many points when I empathized with his struggle, he’d inevitably mention again that he still wanted to try and hit an IPO jackpot. I don’t begrudge that pursuit, but the empathy does evaporate a bit.