Uncanny Valley (Wiener)

Uncanny Valley: A Memoir
Anna Wiener, 2020
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374278014


Summary
In her mid-twenties, at the height of tech industry idealism, Anna Wiener—stuck, broke, and looking for meaning in her work, like any good millennial—left a job in book publishing for the promise of the new digital economy.

She moved from New York to San Francisco, where she landed at a big-data startup in the heart of the Silicon Valley bubble: a world of surreal extravagance, dubious success, and fresh-faced entrepreneurs hell-bent on domination, glory, and, of course, progress.

Anna arrived amidst a massive cultural shift, as the tech industry rapidly transformed into a locus of wealth and power rivaling Wall Street.

But amid the company ski vacations and in-office speakeasies, boyish camaraderie and ride-or-die corporate fealty, a new Silicon Valley began to emerge: one in far over its head, one that enriched itself at the expense of the idyllic future it claimed to be building.

Part coming-of-age-story, part portrait of an already-bygone era, Anna Wiener’s memoir is a rare first-person glimpse into high-flying, reckless startup culture at a time of unchecked ambition, unregulated surveillance, wild fortune, and accelerating political power.

With wit, candor, and heart, Anna deftly charts the tech industry’s shift from self-appointed world savior to democracy-endangering liability, alongside a personal narrative of aspiration, ambivalence, and disillusionment.

Unsparing and incisive, Uncanny Valley is a cautionary tale, and a revelatory interrogation of a world reckoning with consequences its unwitting designers are only beginning to understand. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Anna Wiener is a contributing writer to The New Yorker online, where she writes about Silicon Valley, startup culture, and technology. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, New York, New Republic, and n+1, as well as in Best American Nonrequired Reading 2017. She lives in San Francisco. Uncanny Valley is her first book. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
[Wiener] is here to fill out our worst-case scenarios with shrewd insight and literary detail.… Wiener is a droll yet gentle guide.… The real strength of Uncanny Valley comes from her careful parsing of the complex motivations and implications that fortify this new surreality at every level, from the individual body to the body politic (Cover review).
New York Times Book Review


[Uncanny Valley] defamiliarize[s] us with the Internet as we now know it, reminding us of the human desires and ambitions that have shaped its evolution.… Wiener's book is studded with sharp assessments.
Washington Post


The entrenched sexism of Silicon Valley is one of several endemic ills that Anna Wiener examines at unsparingly close range in Uncanny Valley, her absorbing, unsettling, gimlet-eyed memoir of time served in tech…. [T]he world the tech bros are molding is the one we’re all living in. The most valuable question Wiener asks is why we are allowing that to happen.
Boston Globe


The quality of Weiner's on-the-ground observations, coupled with acuity she brings to understanding the psychology at work, makes the book illuminating on a page-by-page basis.… [Wiener's] empathy makes the portrait all the more damning.… [Her] book isn't a warning so much as a lament over the damage done and the damage still to come.
Chicago Tribune


Hyper-self-aware.… Wiener's book transcends the model of a tech-work memoir.… Throughout the memoir, Wiener sustains a piercing tone of crisp, arch observation. It's revelatory to see her navigate the subjects one generally reads about in newspaper headlines, about sexism at Google or the unregulated forums behind events such as Pizzagate.
San Francisco Chronicle


Biting and funny.… Uncanny Valley will speak to you as well as any book about millennial culture. Its humor is a proxy for the despair Wiener feels about tech culture's predicament and her helplessness at doing anything about it.… Uncanny Valley ought to be read by policymakers just as closely as any set of statistics.
Los Angeles Times


Uncanny Valley is a different sort of Silicon Valley narrative, a literary-minded outsider's insider account of an insulated world that isn't as insular or distinctive as it and we assume.… Through [Wiener's] story, we begin to perceive how much tech owes its power, and the problems that come with it, to contented ignorance.
Atlantic


Equal parts enchanting and subversive.… [Wiener's] account of living inside the Bay Area bubble reads like HBO's Silicon Valley filtered through Renata Adler; Wiener is a trenchant cultural cartographer, mapping out a foggy world whose ruling class is fueled by empty scripts: "People were saying nothing, and saying it all the time." The book's author does the very opposite.
Vogue


Beautifully observed.… Someone like Wiener makes for a good spy in the house of tech.… Wiener excels at…  the texture of life for people in a particular and pivotal time and place.
Slate


An achingly relatable and sharply focused firsthand account.… [T]he literary texture of Wiener's narrative makes it particularly valuable as a primary document of this moment. Her voice, alternating between cool and detached and impassioned and earnest, boasts an observational precision that is devastating. It is whip smart and searingly funny, too… a feat.
Nation


[A] hyper-detailed, thoroughly engrossing memoir.… At the intersection of exploitative labor, entitled men, and ungodly amounts of money, Wiener bears witness to the fearsome future as it unfolds.
Esquire


[An] insider-y debut memoir that sharply critiques start-up culture and the tech industry.… Wiener is an entertaining writer, and those interested in a behind-the-scenes look at life in Silicon Valley will want to take a look.
Publishers Weekly


[A]bsorbing, fast-paced…. Wiener is a talented writer, and her story will engage fellow millennials…. Insight into the history of Silicon Valley, and the ideologies transforming society, are a bonus that will ensure the book's longevity.
Library Journal


A compelling takedown of the pitfalls of start-up culture, from sexism to the lack of guardrails,Uncanny Valley highlights the maniacal optimism of the twentysomethings behind the screens and the pitfalls of the culture they are building
Booklist


(Starred review) Equal parts bildungsroman and insider report, this book reveals not just excesses of the tech-startup landscape, but also the Faustian bargains and hidden political agendas embedded in the so-called "inspiration culture" underlying a too-powerful industry. A funny, highly informative, and terrifying read.
Kirkus Reviews


(Starred review) [Wiener] is an extremely gifted writer and cultural critic. Uncanny Valley may be a defining memoir of the 2020s, and it's one that will send a massive chill down your spine.
BookPage

Discussion Questions
1. Why does Anna Wiener leave New York and a career in publishing? What are her first impressions of San Francisco and the people who live and work there? What qualifications does she bring to the job in customer support at a data analytics startup? What are her goals?

2. What is the "uncanny valley"? Why does Wiener choose this term for the title of her memoir? What are examples of her experiences that ft the definition?

3. What kind of manager is the CEO of the analytics startup? How does he treat Wiener? How do his employees treat him? What signals does he send with his weekly all-hands meetings? With his insistence on the slogan "Down for the Cause"? What message might the CEO be meaning to send by firing Noah, one of his earliest and most talented hires?

4. Wiener writes, "What was anyone ever talking about? People said things like 'coexecute' and 'upleveling'; they used 'ask' and 'attach' and 'fail' as nouns. They joked about 'adulting.'" How does the language of a workplace reveal its culture and attitudes? How has the language and business culture of Silicon Valley spread?

5. Late one Friday afternoon, Wiener is summoned into a surprise meeting with the CEO of the analytics startup. He questions her abilities and loyalty and tells her, "I don't think we have the same values. I don't even know what your values are." Though it seems like she will be fired, she is given a promotion soon after the meeting. What might have been the CEO's motive? What are his values? How does Wiener come to realize what she values? Can it be said that there are common values among the workers of Silicon Valley?

6. At a company where most employees work remotely, Wiener often feels isolated or lonely. How does she cope with this? How is the life she lives online representative of the impact of the internet and social networks on all our lives? How have relationships, socializing, learning, creating, shopping, et cetera, been changed?

7. What is a meritocracy? What are its benefits and pitfalls? As Wiener explains to a New York friend why she stays at her job, she realizes that there are some things that "Silicon Valley got right." What does she find satisfying and fun about her work?

8. What is the new hire Danilo's vision for technology? Why is it significant? When the secretary of Housing and Urban Development visits the open-source startup to discuss broadening access to home computers and closing the digital literacy gap, Danilo introduces his presentation by saying, "The internet is an accelerant for growth and a dissolver of class walls…. Most of all, it is the ticket to twenty-first century prosperity." Is there evidence that this is true at every level of society?

9. During Wiener's time with the analytics startup, an NSA contractor leaks information that shows the United States government has been spying on private citizens. How does her employer respond to this? Why does her manager tell her, "We're the good guys? "What happened during the 2016 presidential campaign that brought big data's flaws and its power into the open?

10. What is it like for Wiener and other women working at mostly male tech companies ?How do her employers respond when Wiener asks for higher pay and more equity? When she reported blatant sexual harassment? How do men and women differ in their explanations of why there aren't more women working in Silicon Valley startups? What attributes might women bring to these workplaces that would improve both profits and quality of life?

11. Who are the people who support Wiener or influence her decisions? How do her friendships with men, as well as her relationship with Ian, help her become acclimated to Silicon Valley and the culture of tech startups? What does she learn from Noah? From Patrick?

12. How is work-life balance defined and practiced at the open-source startup? What are the mandatory parties, trips, and other, sometimes silly, team-building and social events meant to accomplish? How is freedom defined and achieved? Is the corporate environment at each of Wiener's companies more culture or cult?

13. What do many tech startups have in common with regard to their origins? Who are the founders? How are they initially funded? Who are early hires and what incentives are they offered? How do these companies respond to setbacks? To success? To critical issues like diversity, privacy, security, and abuse of their platforms?

14. What have been the consequences of "scale" for the corporations of Silicon Valley? For the city of San Francisco and its long time residents? What solutions have been proposed for problems with housing and homelessness, transportation, and so on, caused by explosive growth and imbalance of wealth?

15. In 2018, after five years in Silicon Valley, Wiener exercises her stock options and resigns from the open-source startup. What is the basis for this decision? How does the aftermath of the 2016 election affect her and the corporations of Silicon Valley? As she reflects on her time spent working at tech startups, what does she see as the highs and lows? What are issues she believes need to be addressed? What might she see as the future of silicon valley as represented by her former CEO, her coworkers, and her managers?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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