Book info

• Title Uncanny Valley
• Author Anna Wiener
• Year 2020
• Genre Memoir

At twenty-five years old, Anna Wiener was beginning to tire of her assistant job in New York publishing. There was no room to grow, and the voyeuristic thrill of answering someone else’s phone had worn thin. Within a year she had moved to Silicon Valley to take up a job at a data analytics startup in San Francisco. Leaving her business casual skirts and shirts in the wardrobe, she began working in company-branded T-shirts. She had a healthy income for the first time in her life. She felt like part of the future. But a tide was beginning to turn. People were speaking of tech startups as surveillance companies. Out of sixty employees, only eight of her colleagues were women. Casual sexism was rife. Sexual harassment cases were proliferating. And soon, like everyone else, she was addicted to the internet, refreshing the news, refreshing social media, scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. Slowly, she began to realise that her blind faith in ambitious, arrogant young men from America’s soft suburbs wasn’t just her own personal pathology. It had become a global affliction.

Thoughts

I’ve had this book in my to read list for a while and I’m not sure why it suddenly jumped out at me but I’m glad I finally got to it. The book tells of a journey from the New York publishing world, diving headfirst into Silicon Valley startup culture and all that it entails. It’s really well written and engaging, particularly as having obfuscate names and places can be annoying but is done very well here - you generally do know which company is being talked about at any one time.

There’s a lot to unpack in terms of joining an industry you don’t know a lot about, the culture around startups both in gender equality and general working habits, and the impact the Valley is having on housing and surrounding areas. Lots of interesting thoughts and ideas, and I liked that there’s no shying away from the fact that even though you can tell some things are questionable, other areas are really enjoyable. It’s not black and white. There are no answers but a peek behind the curtain is a really good start.

Rating: 3 / 5