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A review by 0xreid
Abolish Silicon Valley: How to Liberate Technology from Capitalism by Wendy Liu
2.0
The first 3/4s of the book is memoir about the author's experience trying to start a startup, and while it does illustrate some important things about toxic SV/tech culture and capitalism, it's a very specific experience as a privileged young founder who is not actually in SV (the story largely takes place in Montreal and NYC, with the exception of a Google internship and a handful of trips/meetings in the Bay Area). It also had some very problematic ideas expressed in the memoir portion that ultimately aren't actually addressed or challenged by the end, including some serious internalized misogyny.
I could see this being a useful introduction in some ways to people new to the problematic aspects of SV/tech industry culture and/or the importance of labor organizing in relation to capitalism, but for me it was ultimately frustrating and it fell far short of its potential, especially as implied by the title and subtitle.
That being said, I do agree with many of the proposed ideas in the end. Unfortunately those specific solutions aren't proposed till the chapter starting on page 188 (the book ends around page 215), and feel incredibly rushed through and devoid of a lot of important work others have been putting into this for decades already.
I could see this being a useful introduction in some ways to people new to the problematic aspects of SV/tech industry culture and/or the importance of labor organizing in relation to capitalism, but for me it was ultimately frustrating and it fell far short of its potential, especially as implied by the title and subtitle.
That being said, I do agree with many of the proposed ideas in the end. Unfortunately those specific solutions aren't proposed till the chapter starting on page 188 (the book ends around page 215), and feel incredibly rushed through and devoid of a lot of important work others have been putting into this for decades already.