Uncanny Valley - Anna Wiener

• The story is set in the early 2010s in Silicon Valley during a startup boom filled with optimism and disruption.

• The narrator is a 25-year-old woman living in Brooklyn working as a literary agency assistant. Her life feels stagnant and unraveling.

• She is largely unaware of and indifferent to the tech industry and startup world. Her only knowledge comes from its effect on publishing, like the rise of ebooks and the power of a large online retailer.

• The narrator leads an analog life, preferring film cameras, records, and magazines. She socializes with artsy men in Brooklyn.

• Her job and relationships feel like they’re ending, making her think about applying to grad school.

The author spent a year working as a literary assistant in New York City around 2012. She and her friends in publishing were worried about the state of the industry and their uncertain futures. They were paid very little and struggled to afford living in New York. Meanwhile, many of the author’s peers were starting tech companies or otherwise making millions of dollars.

One day, the author read an article about a startup that had raised $3 million to revolutionize book publishing with an e-reading app. Though the startup seemed dubious, the author was intrigued by the ambition and optimism of its cofounders. She ended up leaving her assistant job to join the startup in early 2013.

The three cofounders of the startup were young, confident men from the tech industry. Though the author had expected startup founders to fit a certain stereotype, these cofounders did not. They were polished, charismatic, and seemed very self-assured. They had recently moved to New York from San Francisco to build their company, though they would have preferred to remain out west. The author wondered if they were lonely in New York, but in reality, they were focused and successful. They were in relationships, lived comfortably, and seemed to have an answer for everything regarding their work.

The author portrays the startup cofounders as an embodiment of power, money, and promise that was unfathomable to her in her previous role. Though the startup’s plans seemed dubious, the cofounders exuded an ambition and entitlement to shape the future that the author found attractive. They represented a world of tech-industry success to which she now had access, even if she felt out of place.

The author took a three-month trial position as a contractor at an e-book startup. The job responsibilities were unclear but the pay was $40,000 per year. The author’s friends were skeptical of the business model but the author ignored their concerns.

The startup’s office was in a loft they shared with another tech company. The startup had millions in funding but only two employees and a prototype app used by a few people. The author felt valued and useful contributing opinions, but did not fully understand the business.

The author went to see a disturbing counterterrorism movie with the founders for the CTO’s birthday. The author considered faking illness to leave but stayed. After, they went to a Japanese dessert bar. The author felt like an outsider but lucky to be included.

The author befriended Cam, the other employee. They ate lunch together and Cam explained tech concepts. Cam got upset when the founders blew off the author’s book club idea. He said the author was working hard for the company culture. But the author’s main jobs became finding an office and ordering snacks.

The author organized team outings and a book club but the founders usually didn’t participate. The author realized the founders, who were in their 20s, didn’t really need the author for anything. The culture revolved around them.

They found a new office space to share with another startup. The author felt less like an employee and more like “the help.” The trial period ended and the author was not offered a permanent job. The author felt foolish for being so devoted to the founders and startup.

In summary, the author had an unsatisfying experience working as a contractor at an e-book startup founded by younger men. The author’s responsibilities and value to the company were unclear, and the author was ultimately not retained as a permanent employee.

• The author was working at an e-reading startup. The startup had gone through multiple pivots, changing its business model frequently in an attempt to make money. This resulted in layoffs of many employees.

• The remaining employees, including the author, worked long hours to try and ensure the startup’s success. The CEO believed millennials preferred “experiences” over ownership, and that the e-reading app would appeal to people who wanted to signal that they read, even if they didn’t actually read much.

• The author realized the founders were more interested in expanding the business and less interested in books themselves. She suggested the startup host literary events and have a book blog, but the founders were more focused on growth and scalability.

• The author struggled to adapt to the startup mentality. The CEO criticized her for being too focused on learning rather than doing. She tried to educate herself on the startup mentality, but ultimately didn’t feel she was a good fit. She left the job.

• The author considered moving to San Francisco, where many of her peers had moved after college. However, her friends reported that the city was becoming overrun by young tech workers, rents were increasing, and the culture was changing. The city was catering more and more to the demands of privileged recent college graduates working in tech.

• Overall, the passage paints a picture of the difficult experience of working at a startup, the culture clashes that can occur between the tech and non-tech worlds, and the way the tech industry is impacting cities like San Francisco. The author felt out of place at the e-reading startup and witnessed how the city of San Francisco was bending to suit the desires of young tech workers.

• The narrator is a young woman who travels to San Francisco to interview for a customer support position at a startup. She stays with an older couple renting out their spare bedroom through a home-sharing app. The couple has quit their jobs to host full-time.

• The narrator’s friends have mostly left San Francisco, blaming tech companies and gentrification for ruining the city and making it unaffordable. The narrator doesn’t tell her friends about her interview to avoid their judgment.

• The analytics startup was founded four years ago by college dropouts. It has received $12 million in funding and has 17 employees. The CEO says it’s poised for huge growth and success.

• The narrator thinks her liberal arts background in sociology could be useful for business analytics. She reads about the charismatic young cofounders of the startup. They left college to join an accelerator program that gave them funding and connections in exchange for equity.

• The startup’s office is very large but mostly empty, with about 15 young employees. The narrator notices there are only 3 women. She feels out of place in her professional outfit among the casually dressed employees.

• In her interview, the narrator has to work through logic puzzles and problems on a whiteboard to demonstrate her problem-solving skills. The interview lasts 4 hours and involves multiple interviewers testing her in strange ways. She finds the process bizarre and doubts her abilities.

• Overall, the narrator feels like an outsider in the unfamiliar culture of the startup world. She is uncertain about her qualifications for the job and ability to fit into the company.

The author moved from New York to San Francisco to take a job at a mobile analytics startup as a customer support representative. The interview process was bizarre and punishing, including having to take an LSAT section, but she was offered the job at a salary of $65,000, which she accepted without negotiating.

The author was worried about the move but excited for a new adventure and to learn more about tech startups. Her friends were skeptical that she was “selling out.” The author claimed she was moving for the music scene and lifestyle in San Francisco, though really she was ambitious and wanted momentum in her career.

When she arrived, the tech industry was courting young male programmers with high salaries and perks. The author rented a room in someone else’s home near her office. Though she had some belongings shipped, she tried to be frugal with the relocation stipend the company provided. She worried about spending too much of their money.

Overall, the summary depicts the author as an eager but naive newcomer to the tech industry and San Francisco life. She is taking a risk for career opportunity that her peers don’t fully understand. The summary highlights her anxieties about the move, the eccentric interview process, her living situation, and managing the relocation stipend.

The author was offered a job as an employee at an analytics startup in San Francisco. She was hesitant to accept the offer at first because she was worried about appearing frivolous with her expenses. However, she ultimately decided to take the job and moved into an Airbnb owned by one of the cofounders of the home-sharing platform.

The analytics startup made software that helped companies collect and analyze customer data. Data was very valuable and many companies wanted to use it to gain insights into customer behavior and build better products. The startup’s product stood out because it had a good user interface designed by talented designers.

The author was the fourth woman hired at the company and worked on the Solutions team helping customers solve issues with the product. Her coworkers were young, quirky men who embraced startup culture. Her manager paired her with an enthusiastic coworker named Noah to help train her. With Noah’s help, she quickly learned how the company’s product and technology worked.

The author found working with customer data sets and code thrilling. She enjoyed solving problems for customers and gained confidence in her technical abilities. She came to understand why big data was so coveted in Silicon Valley. The company cared most about user “engagement” and moving away from older metrics like page views.

In summary, the author took a job at an analytics startup, immersed herself in the company culture, trained hard, and found fulfillment in gaining technical skills and working with data. She grew to appreciate why data was so valuable to tech companies.

• The startup created software that tracked user engagement and behavior across platforms. It gathered data from many types of apps and websites.

• The software allowed companies to analyze user behavior in granular detail based on many attributes. It provided insights into how different groups were interacting with the platforms.

• The startup also offered a “people-analytics tool” that stored individual user profiles and activity. This allowed companies to target specific users based on their behavior.

• To do their jobs, the startup’s employees were given broad access to customers’ data and dashboards. They could see how the software was being used across many companies. This was called “God Mode.”

• This level of access provided employees with an education in how startups operate and succeed or fail. They could see patterns of growth and decline across many companies. However, they were expected not to disclose confidential information or use insights for personal gain.

• The startup operated in San Francisco, a city struggling with an influx of tech companies and workers. The culture of the tech industry focused on lifestyle and experiences that were carefully curated and rated. Founders engaged with the city mostly through rating apps and posting about trendy restaurants.

• There was a disconnect between the city’s history as a haven for outsiders and the rise of tech’s capitalist and masculine culture. The tech community seemed more focused on conspicuous leisure activities than engaging with the city’s cultural institutions.

The city of San Francisco attracted young technology workers who pursued an authentic urban experience without realizing that they themselves had become the most “authentic” part of the current city. The city’s progressive politics and permissive culture appealed to some but rankled others, including transplants who criticized aspects of the city on blogs and social media. Major tech companies established isolated campuses in suburban areas about 30 miles south of the city, though their workers commuted into the city via private shuttles.

The city was full of contrasts, with homeless encampments located near luxury developments. The narrator, having moved from New York, was surprised by the openness of the city’s problems like public suffering and poverty. She felt guilty and naïve in the face of these issues.

The narrator moved into an apartment with two tech worker roommates in their late 20s. Though they didn’t seem to need it, they kept the apartment because of its rent control. The narrator had an easier time relating to the female product manager roommate, who seemed more cultured and adult, though they mainly talked about exercise.

At the product manager’s 30th birthday party, the narrator felt out of place among the manager’s friends, who seemed poised to become young millionaires. She noticed a difference in style between these aspiring millionaires and her own coworkers. Some of the party guests were already discussing real estate investment opportunities in Oakland. By the end of the party, the narrator was cleaning up while still feeling like an outsider.

Most nights, the narrator worked late while the neighborhood around her office emptied out. The city seemed deserted at night except for a few homeless individuals, highlighting the city’s contrasts.

In summary, the passage describes the narrator’s experience as a young transplant in San Francisco who struggles to find her place among different groups, from aspiring tech millionaires to the visibly suffering homeless population. The city is portrayed as a place of opportunity but also isolation and hardship.

The narrator reluctantly starts using ride-sharing apps and finds the experience unsettling. However, the apps provide a convenient way to commute, so she continues using them.

As part of her onboarding at a tech startup, the narrator’s manager sets up lunch dates for her with coworkers to help her network. She has lunch with an account manager who sees the startup as a “get-rich-quick scheme” and believes the company is destined for huge success. She also has lunch with the difficult but brilliant chief technology officer, with whom she finds she has more in common than expected.

The startup hosts monthly events for people interested in data and analytics. The narrator attends one of these events and notes that most attendees are young men in tech attire eagerly pitching their startups. Her own team, the “Solutions Zone,” helps attendees access and analyze their companies’ data. The main presentation at the event is by two venture capitalists, and the narrator observes that the event combines few women, lots of money, and people eager to get funding.

• The narrator works as a solution specialist at an analytics startup in San Francisco. The company culture emphasizes transparency, hard work, and loyalty to the mission. Employees work long hours and are enthusiastic about the company’s success and growth.

• The CEO frequently instills fear in employees by framing the competitive landscape in militaristic terms. He praises employees who go “above and beyond” by being “Down for the Cause.” Receiving praise from the CEO is rare but gratifying.

• The narrator adopts many of the cultural signifiers of startup life, like wearing casual and utilitarian clothing, taking B vitamins and energy supplements, listening to electronic dance music while working, and riding an electric skateboard around the office. These affectations make her feel confident, productive, and part of the group.

• However, the narrator struggles with fully mastering some of the technical aspects of her job and the cultural practices of her coworkers, like riding RipStiks. She relies on generic advice and scripted demos to assist programmer and data scientist clients, even though she does not completely understand the technology. Her attempts to prove her competence to her parents end up highlighting her performative enthusiasm.

• Overall, the passage portrays the narrator’s complex experience of finding purpose and belonging in the high-pressure, frantic environment of a tech startup, even as she grapples with the disconnect between her actual skills and understanding and what is required to thrive in that world. The cultural practices she adopts provide a veneer of confidence but ultimately do not address her underlying self-doubt and imposter syndrome.

• The narrator works as a customer support representative for a software company. Her job is to help troubleshoot issues that customers encounter while using the company’s product.

• The narrator’s coworkers and managers praise her for being adept at her job. She is good at figuring out what is actually wrong when customers think there is an issue with the software. She has to delicately handle frustrated and angry customers, often taking the blame for their mistakes to diffuse the situation.

• The narrator’s job is tedious and repetitive. She often feels like an “artificial intelligence” or “bot” in her role. However, she does find some satisfaction in the clarity and order of her work compared to her previous job as a literary editor.

• The narrator’s CEO encourages her to learn how to code so she can get promoted. However, the narrator has no interest in coding or building software. She tries to learn JavaScript to complete the CEO’s requested task of building a networked checkers game but quickly realizes she lacks the passion and motivation for it.

• The narrator’s manager gives her a raise as a reward for her strong performance so far. With the extra money, the narrator moves into her own studio apartment, hoping she can progress in her career and eventually move back to New York.

• Overall, the narrator seems rather ambivalent about her job and role at the software company. While she is good at what she does, she lacks passion or enthusiasm for the work. She hopes to eventually transition into something different, though she recognizes the steady income and experience the job provides for now.

The narrator moves to San Francisco for a job at a tech startup. She rents a small studio apartment in the Haight neighborhood. The area is rough, with many homeless people and drug users hanging around. The narrator spends most of her time alone, exploring the city by bike, going to parks and concerts by herself. She tries using a dating app but becomes paranoid about her data being seen by the wrong people.

A friend sets the narrator up on a date with an engineer. They meet for dinner and cocktails. The engineer seems pretentious but nice enough. The narrator looks him up online and sees that he cultivates a curated image of an adventurous lifestyle through his social media posts. Although she enjoys the date, she doesn’t expect to see the engineer again.

The CEO of the narrator’s company suggests she meet his girlfriend. The girlfriend is poised, articulate and works as an engineer at an animation studio. Over drinks, the girlfriend says her work involves bringing characters to life and manipulating physics. The narrator envies the girlfriend’s perfect life but also finds her likeable. They plan to meet again the following week.

The narrator continues to struggle with loneliness in her new city. She spends weekends alone and observes other people socializing in parks. She goes on long bike rides by herself. Although her life involves a lot of freedom and privacy, she longs for more social connections.

The narrator met the CEO’s girlfriend at a work event and tried to imagine becoming friends with her. However, she found it difficult to see the woman as independent from her boyfriend and workplace dynamics. Their conversation felt performative and anxiety-inducing. They didn’t have much in common.

News broke that the NSA was conducting mass surveillance using data from technology companies. The narrator and her coworkers avoided discussing this, though they worked for an analytics startup helping companies track user behavior. They saw themselves as “the good guys” who were just improving products, though users didn’t know they were being tracked. The CEO was particular about hiring and wanted employees who were as good as or better than the narrator.

The narrator interviewed many candidates but few were hired. More “overqualified millennial men” were hired instead. The new hires were competitive and wanted the CEO’s approval. The narrator felt responsible for them but also had a “complex” because they were more technical than she had been. She tried to get the CEO to compliment the engineers to prevent burnout, but he said that was what he paid them for. The CEO and narrator didn’t always understand each other. She valued empathy and grammar while he valued data analysis and “optimizing.” She wanted compassionate team members, but he wanted efficient “machines.”

In summary, the narrator struggled with her relationship to her coworkers and company. She felt anxiety, responsibility, and alienation in her role. The CEO had a very different leadership style and values than she did, focusing on efficiency and metrics over employee wellbeing.

• At an analytics startup, non-technical employees were undervalued. Their skills and contributions were discounted and not compensated as well as engineering roles.

• The company culture was very engineering-centric. Emotional intelligence and “soft skills” were not appreciated.

• The operations manager handled many important tasks like payroll, HR, and organizing events, but her work was not valued as much as engineers who could code.

• The company arranged a mandatory team-building exercise where employees got drunk and rowdy, tearing through the city. The exercise highlighted how the culture was not appealing to most people outside of startups.

• In a meeting, employees were asked to list their smartest friends and why they don’t work at the company. The reasons were that the work and culture were not meaningful or interesting to most people.

• The startup world in San Francisco was very visible, with company logos and ads everywhere promoting “disruptive” products andjob openings.

• The startup world developed its own peculiar language and way of communicating that was hard for outsiders to understand. Names of startups often sounded nonsensical.

• There was a lack of common frame of reference, with people speaking very differently depending on their age, background, and industry. This made communication across groups challenging.

In summary, the passage depicts a startup culture that is isolated from and incomprehensible to most outsiders. Non-technical roles are undervalued, and the peculiar language and norms of startups create divisions from the broader community.

The author describes the culture and lifestyle of a group of people in San Francisco centered around her friend Noah. This group engages in radical honesty, communal living, and various New Age and hippie practices like encounter groups, meditation retreats, and psychedelic experiences. The author struggles to fully assimilate to this lifestyle but admires the sense of community and meaning they have built.

At a party, the author meets Ian, Noah’s roommate, who works as a software engineer. They connect over their shared history and Ian gently shows interest in the author. The author feels calm and comfortable around him, a contrast with the intensity of the party. Ian and Noah live in a converted fire station in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. The apartment has an eclectic, communal feel with artifacts from various spiritual and hippie influences.

With Noah moving to a collective, the author enjoys visiting Ian in the apartment alone. Ian’s bedroom is simple but full of collections reflecting his character. The author appreciates the simple, low-key lifestyle she is able to share with Ian.

In summary, the author portrays her experience navigating relationships and social scenes in San Francisco that are characterized by New Age spirituality, radical openness, and a reaction against mainstream careers and lifestyles. Her connection with Ian provides an anchor and oasis within this cultural milieu.

• The passage describes Ian, the narrator’s boyfriend, who works as an engineer at a robotics studio that was recently acquired by a large tech company. Ian and his coworkers are working on a secret robotics project, and Ian is not allowed to share details about it with the narrator.

• The narrator attends a party at the robotics studio where she talks to some of the engineers, including a professor who has spent years teaching robots to tie knots. When she expresses skepticism about self-driving cars, the engineers dismiss her opinion because she works in customer support. The narrator feels they are sexist in dismissing her views.

• The tech company holds a movie night where they watch the CEO’s favorite science fiction film about hackers. The narrator reflects on the appeal of the film to the tech company and notes that the CEO, who founded the company as a teenager, seems to have built the company to surround himself with socially adept men his own age.

• Although the narrator and her coworkers want to be friends with the CEO, he treats them poorly, ignores their feedback, and micromanages them. Some employees see therapists to deal with working for him. The narrator speculates that the CEO would prefer many small customers over a few large ones so he doesn’t have to listen to them.

• In summary, the passage portrays the tech company in a rather negative light, suggesting the engineers and CEO are dismissive of others, especially women, and that the CEO has created an unhealthy work environment to serve his own interests and ego. The secrecy around the robotics project adds to the unease and lack of transparency.

• The solutions team at a startup admired the young CEO and wanted his approval. They speculated about his psychology and background. Some saw him as distrustful or egomaniacal, but others, like the narrator, were more sympathetic.

• Noah, one of the best employees, gave the CEO an ultimatum asking for a raise, new title, and more equity. The CEO fired him immediately without negotiating. The remaining team was upset but feared speaking out.

• The CEO called a meeting and asked if anyone disagreed with firing Noah. No one spoke up, though the narrator privately did disagree. The team started to realize the CEO seemed mainly interested in power, not the team or company mission.

• Though upset, the team tried to remain hopeful. They cared about the company and CEO despite his harsh leadership. They speculated the CEO never got a normal young adulthood and hoped he might still change, though acknowledging he likely didn’t care about them in return.

• Overall, the passage depicts a team grappling with the complex dynamics of working for a young, inexperienced leader at a startup. They struggle to understand his motivations and reconcile their admiration and hopes for him with his callous behavior.

• The narrator works as a customer support representative at a software startup dominated by men. She often feels compelled to cheer up, affirm and defer to her male colleagues to fit in.

• The few women at the company occasionally get together for drinks to commiserate about the sexism and internalized misogyny they face at work. The narrator struggles with wanting to be accepted as an equal by her male coworkers while also speaking up against inappropriate behavior.

• A new female engineer joins the company, and the narrator’s colleague makes an inappropriate comment about how everyone will hit on her. The narrator calls out inappropriate and sexist language when she sees it, though she worries about being seen as a “feminist killjoy.”

• An obnoxious new account manager joins the team and makes an inappropriate comment to the narrator about dating Jewish women. When she brings it up to her manager, he brushes it off, saying “that’s just who he is.”

• At the company Christmas party, the narrator and other women discuss how to dress “appropriately inappropriate.” The CEO and co-founder give a speech thanking the “partners and spouses” of employees for their support. The party moves to an upscale restaurant where people get increasingly drunk and rowdy.

• The summary paints a picture of a startup culture dominated by “boys club” sexism and excess, where women struggle to be heard and respected in the same way as their male colleagues. The narrator grapples with finding her voice and calling out inappropriate behavior, even as her concerns are frequently dismissed.

• The narrator works at an analytics startup in San Francisco. The company organizes an annual ski trip for employees over a long weekend. Though the trip is meant to be a fun reward, the narrator feels obligated to attend and would prefer to have the time off.

• The narrator is wary of spending leisure time with coworkers and concerned about the potential for awkward social dynamics. In particular, she hopes to avoid a male coworker who groped her in a cab ride after work drinks a few weeks prior.

• The first night, the narrator explores the resort grounds with her close friend and coworker, Kyle. They get stoned, walk along the beach, and observe their drunken coworkers in a hot tub. At a company happy hour, the support staff is told to relax while the engineers take over their customer service work, indicating that their job is viewed as simple enough for the engineers to do while inebriated.

• The narrator observes that entrepreneurial men, like her CEO and investors, frequently exchange advice and platitudes about business and life. The CEO seems to admire and take guidance from these men, though the narrator finds their rhetoric unpersuasive and disconnected from reality.

• The narrator finds the CEO reading a book by an investor over lunch. The book offers advice on navigating entrepreneurship and overcoming self-doubt. Though the narrator understands the CEO’s challenges, she can’t relate to modeling one’s life after venture capitalists. The CEO acknowledges the coincidence of reading about firing executives in front of the narrator but says not to worry, as doing so is agonizing. The narrator remains unconvinced.

In summary, the passage highlights the narrator’s ambivalence about and distance from the startup world in which she works. While she maintains friendships with certain coworkers, she remains wary of the social politics and power dynamics at play. She is particularly cynical about the advice and influence of entrepreneurial men in the ecosystem. Her exchange with the CEO over lunch emphasizes her disconnect from his mindset and sources of guidance.

Here’s a summary:

• The narrator meets up with her friend Noah, who was recently fired from the startup they work at. Noah says he’s happier now and criticizes the surveillance nature of the tech industry.

• The narrator attends the symphony with her friend Parker, a digital rights activist. Parker also criticizes the tech industry for becoming less secure, autonomous and more centralized and surveilled. When the narrator asks if her company is a surveillance company, Parker says “What a great question. I thought you’d never ask.”

• The startup is growing rapidly and becoming more corporate. The office is crowded and less personal. Early employees feel nostalgic for the company’s early days and worry about the culture changing.

• Despite some anxiety, things seem to be going well for a few months. Then, the narrator is suddenly called into a meeting with the CEO, who criticizes her work and questions her commitment to the company. The CEO implies the company may no longer need her.

• The summary ends on this ominous note, with the narrator’s position at the company in jeopardy.

• The narrator worked as a Support Engineering team leader at a startup analytics company in San Francisco.

• The CEO called a meeting and told the narrator that she was no longer going to lead the engineering team because she “wasn’t analytical” and they didn’t share the same values. The narrator was upset but tried to convince the CEO she was committed to the company.

• The narrator and her friend Ian took ecstasy at a rental home and had deep conversations. Ian encouraged the narrator to quit her job because the CEO didn’t care about her. The narrator felt conflicted because she lacked job mobility and options.

• The narrator questioned what the “cause” of the company really was. Officially it was to help clients make better data-driven decisions but really it seemed to be about growth and profits at any cost. The narrator enjoyed living life at a slower pace with mundane inefficiencies, unlike the optimized lifestyle the company valued.

• When the CEO asked the narrator if the past year at the company felt like the longest or shortest of her life, she said longest. The CEO said the right answer was both.

• The narrator was unsure whether or not to bring up issues of casual sexism at the company, like a colleague’s smartwatch app showing an animated bouncing breasts GIF and comments about her appearance. Her mother advised her to start looking for a new job.

The key events are: the narrator being removed from her leadership role, questioning the company’s values and priorities, and facing sexism and disrespect at her job. The narrator seems unhappy and unfulfilled working at the company but fears lacking other options. Her friend and mother both suggest she find a new job.

The narrator got a promotion at her tech company to become a customer success manager. In this new role, she is in charge of retaining important clients and managing their accounts. However, she struggles with some aspects of the job.

First, she dislikes the name and concept of “customer success manager.” She finds the title corny and inauthentic. To get around this, she changes her email signature to “technical account manager,” which clients seem to respond to better.

The narrator’s main responsibility is reducing churn, or customer drop-off. This is challenging, as clients often leave due to being neglected, wanting lower prices, or deciding to build their own internal solutions. The narrator visits clients on-site to try and retain them, though she recognizes she is not as persuasive as some other customer success managers. She has trouble saying no to clients and giving them bad news.

The narrator is only 26 but makes $90,000 a year. While this is a good salary, she donates some of the money to charities and spends the rest going out for meals, buying expensive boots, enrolling in a gym membership she’ll never use, and seeing a hypnotherapist. She recognizes she should put more in savings.

The company releases a new product feature called “Addiction” that shows how often users engage with an app. The narrator has mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, she sees why it could be useful for companies and writes a blog post promoting it. On the other, she finds the name insensitive and worries about encouraging technology addiction. When she brings up her concerns to a coworker, he is not very sympathetic.

In summary, the narrator faces challenges navigating her new role, responsibilities, salary, and company’s product choices as a young woman working at a tech startup. She struggles with work-life balance and voicing her opinions in a male-dominated field.

• The narrator works as a consultant helping tech startups define metrics to make money. The jobs are fabricated and everyone is just following someone else’s script.
• The narrator reads job listings more for the perks and benefits than the actual jobs. The listings describe fun work environments more akin to summer camp.
• The narrator visits the offices of various startups, which are mostly designed to reflect the brand and product of the company. One office in particular for a blogging platform is especially lavish and designed to be sexy.
• The narrator wants to find a job at a stable company with a good mission and work-life balance. A friend recommends an open-source software company that makes tools for developers. Though the company was recently involved in a public gender discrimination scandal, the narrator thinks it may be a good time to join.
• The narrator interviews at the open-source startup. The waiting room is designed to look like the Oval Office, showing how much venture capital funding the startup has received. The office overall seems like a “fever dream” and “fantasy.”

The key points are:

• The tech industry jobs are often superficial and about image.

• Startup offices are elaborately designed to reflect the brand.

• The open-source startup seems to have a lot of funding to create such an over-the-top office space.

• Despite the recent scandal, the narrator is still interested in the startup because the culture may be changing and it seems to have a good mission.

The open-source startup was a highly successful and influential company founded by four young programmers. It embraced an egalitarian, countercultural ethos modeled after the free software movement. For years, the company was “flat” with no hierarchy or management. Employees determined their own pay, priorities, and decision making. The founders believed in meritocracy over traditional management.

Employees were given unlimited vacation and encouraged to work whenever and wherever they wanted. Half the employees worked remotely from around the world. The company was obsessed with developers and programmers, who showed an almost fanatical loyalty to the brand. The company’s online store sold enough branded merchandise to be its own business.

The author was embarrassed by how much she enjoyed the lavish office space, with its literal references to the company’s values. She found the lack of oversight and accountability concerning but thrilling. However, the job offered came with a pay cut, demotion, and humiliating title of “Supportocat.” Though the author believed in the company’s mission and potential, her friend pointed out the “dark specter of centralization” and control in the company’s platform.

After two years, the author finally quit. She felt liberated leaving the office for the last time. She realized she had been seduced by the confidence and ambition of the young male founders and given them too much control and trust over her life and values. However, she recognized this was a broader cultural issue, not just her own personal mistake. In the end, she watched the fog settle over the city from a distance, freed from the startup’s influence.

• The narrator has started a new job at an open-source startup with 200 employees. The company culture is very transparent, with all communications and work visible to everyone in the organization. Employees document everything extensively and communicate primarily through chat software.

• The narrator spends the first week reading through the company’s archives and chat history to learn about the organizational culture. She finds discussions around a past gender discrimination scandal at the company. She also sees that her coworkers use emojis and memes frequently in communication.

• The narrator travels to Chicago for a “hack house,” where employees meet in person. She bonds with her coworker “Supportocats,” the technical support team. They discuss issues facing the company, including difficulties recovering from the gender discrimination scandal. Some feel the situation was complicated, as the woman who reported the issues was not the only employee with equity in the company.

• The narrator’s coworkers discuss an ongoing harassment campaign by internet trolls targeting women in gaming. The trolls have built a repository to organize the stalking and harassment of women. Although disturbing, some coworkers feel the trolls are mostly harmless and will eventually move on. The company does not have a formal team to handle these kinds of issues.

• In summary, the narrator is learning the complex dynamics of company culture at her new job. Issues around diversity and inclusiveness are clearly challenging for the organization. Coworkers have a range of views on how seriously to take outside harassment targeting women. The narrator is navigating all this as the new employee.

• Rubberneckers, a casual chat room group, disabled a open source repository after complaints, leading to threats and harassment.

• An engineer dismissed the threats, saying the people behind them were just immature “assholes” and “bad actors.”

• As part of onboarding, employees got fitness trackers to encourage productivity. Some employees got into “biohacking” and “optimization culture” by tracking metrics and taking unregulated drugs to enhance cognitive performance.

• The author found this “optimization culture” sad and somewhat misguided. She wanted self-improvement but in a more balanced, purposeful way.

• Though working in the office wasn’t required, the author enjoyed spending time there occasionally. The office had a club-like culture, with amenities like free vending machines, lounges, and a bar. Most meetings were done remotely though.

• The author felt lonely and wanted to feel like part of the company, so she did things like getting a desk, company swag, using amenities, and joining the soccer team. But she still felt like an outsider.

• Early employees had more status and nostalgia for the company’s early days. The author envied their sense of ownership and belonging but also felt she had “dodged a bullet.”

• The author prepared extensively for weekly video meetings with the Support team by tidying up the visible area around her laptop. Her boyfriend suggested splitting up her job to make things easier.

The key themes are feelings of loneliness and lack of belonging as the company grew rapidly, troubles balancing work and life, the spread of an “optimization culture” focused on productivity and metrics, and tensions between newer and more established employees.

• The narrator works remotely as part of the support team for an open-source startup. While most of the communication is via video chats, the team occasionally meets in person. The narrator enjoys the intimacy of the video chats and getting to see into her teammates’ personal lives.

• The startup’s engineers, mostly men, frequent an online message board to discuss various topics like philosophy, ethics, and economics. When news broke about the startup’s gender discrimination case, the commenters on the board debated the issue and often blamed the women.

• The narrator attends a conference for women in computing, sponsored in part by her company. She meets up with some of the women engineers from her company and learns more about their experiences. They say the company’s supposed meritocracy and flat structure hid a lot of problems like a lack of diversity, bias in hiring and promotions, and a pay gap between men and women.

• The open-source, decentralized model of the company ended up enabling a “tyranny of structurelessness.” A shadow hierarchy developed based on relationships and proximity to the founders. This contributed to the problems the women engineers faced in getting their work accepted and promoted. The company promoted equality and openness in theory but not in practice.

• In summary, while the narrator’s team has a good remote work environment with open communication, the overall company culture was shown to be quite problematic, especially for the women employees. The open-source ethos and flat structure hid systemic issues of gender bias and discrimination.

The author attended a tech conference for women at a convention center. She felt out of place among the younger computer science students but was heartened to see the focus on women in tech and possibilities for the future. However, she also heard many stories of discrimination and abuse that women face in the tech industry.

The keynote speech and male ally panel were both criticized for their ignorant and unhelpful comments. The author noted that the open-source startup she works for is trying to improve after facing its own issues around company culture and discrimination. They hired a diversity consultant to help make changes.

The author’s coworkers were mostly receptive to the diversity and inclusion initiatives, seeing them as overdue. However, some pushed back against them, arguing they were lowering the bar or that diversity of thought was more important. The author notes that some had trouble accepting the critique of meritocracy and its implications for open-source work. Overall, the open-source startup is working to become an industry leader on diversity and inclusion, though it is an ongoing process.

The summary touches on the key events, descriptions, and takeaways from the author’s experience at the tech conference and the open-source startup’s attempts to address issues of discrimination and build a more inclusive culture. The summary highlights the challenges and resistance that these efforts face while also noting the possibilities for change.

The colleague experienced several microaggressions at her technology company workplace:

1. The company espoused the notion of “meritocracy” to justify its lack of diversity and unequal outcomes. In reality, the company’s hiring and promotions favored people with similar backgrounds as the CEO and existing employees.

2. The company formed a “diversity council” to address issues of inequality but it seemed to just be lip service. For example, the council recommended that male employees read a book on feminism but there was no evidence of real change.

3. When the colleague pointed out a homeless black man in an octopus-cat hoodie like the ones her company gave out, her coworker dismissed it saying “we’re not supposed to give away the hoodies.” This showed a lack of awareness of larger issues of inequality and lack of diversity.

4. The company and its employees were very wrapped up in their own “personal mythologies” and posting curated images of their lives on social media. This contributed to a sense of constant distraction and inadequacy.

5. The internet and social media in particular were set up to encourage constant sharing and scrolling. This led to information overload, confusion, and distraction for the colleague.

6. The colleague felt like she was “giving herself away at every opportunity” by constantly sharing information online. She felt lack of control and privacy.

In summary, the technology company and internet culture in which the colleague operated subjected her to frequent microaggressions, lack of diversity and awareness, distraction, information overload, and loss of privacy. This led to feelings of discomfort, inadequacy and lack of fulfillment.

• The author worked for an analytics startup in San Francisco but quit to take another job. The CEO contacts the author with an offer to return to the startup to work on content and marketing. The author is tempted but her partner reminds her that she left for good reasons and the CEO is unlikely to treat her well.

• The author visits New York, where she is from, and feels a mix of emotions. The city has changed a lot, becoming unaffordable and catering to wealthy “tech bros.” However, she also enjoys reconnecting with old friends and familiar places from her past. She recognizes that change is inevitable in cities but still finds the pace and nature of change in New York and San Francisco alienating.

• While in New York, the author attends a performance by a choreographer friend. She finds it beautiful and moving. Afterward, she expresses frustration to a friend that creative work and civic contributions are not as valued or well-compensated as working in tech. Her friend suggests she find work she actually cares about, but the author says the money, benefits, and lifestyle tech provides are hard to leave behind. The tech industry has made her accustomed to a certain lifestyle and work culture.

• Overall, the author seems torn between the financial security and familiarity of her job in tech and a desire to do more meaningful work. She struggles with how much cities like New York and San Francisco have changed, in part due to the tech industry, but also recognizes her own role in and benefits from these changes. She worries tech’s influence is diminishing other valuable parts of society like art and community.

• The narrator reflects on the culture of efficiency and optimization that pervades the tech industry and Silicon Valley. Everything seems to be engineered for productivity and longer lives that can be spent working. It is frowned upon to acknowledge that work is transactional rather than a noble mission.

• The narrator notices how similar and homogeneous all the tech workers seem, in their style of dress, interior design, habits, and consumption of products from direct-to-consumer startups. Efficiency has become the dominant value, even in personal lives.

• The narrator gets into an argument with a tech CEO named Patrick on social media about making books shorter and more efficient. Patrick invites the narrator to lunch to continue the discussion. The narrator brings a stack of books to give to Patrick to try and push back against his views.

• The narrator bikes over to Patrick’s office, feeling smug in her plan to “speak truth to power” and counter his perspective. Patrick seems friendly and open to discussion, however.

The key ideas here are:

1. The tech industry promotes a culture of efficiency, optimization and productivity that permeates all aspects of life.

2. This culture of efficiency leads to a kind of homogeneity and lack of individuality. People end up dressing, living, and consuming in very similar ways.

3. The narrator disagrees with a tech CEO’s view that books should be made shorter and more efficient. She aims to challenge his perspective.

4. Despite their disagreement, the CEO (Patrick) seems open to discussion and inviting of the narrator’s perspective. The narrator may have misjudged him.

Does this summary accurately reflect the key ideas and events in the passage? Let me know if you would like me to clarify or expand on any part of the summary.

Here is a summary of the key events:

• The author met Patrick, a startup founder, for the first time in person after interacting with him on a microblogging platform. She was surprised to find that she liked him—he was charming and eloquent. They discussed various topics over lunch, including the author’s desire to find meaningful work.

• Patrick expressed interest in the author’s book reviewing and asked if she wanted to pursue it full-time. The author said the main thing stopping her was that she didn’t know what her goals were. Patrick listened patiently as she talked through this.

• Afterward, as they were parting ways, the author gave Patrick a book on prison abolition, which he said he was interested in. The author was struck by how Patrick didn’t fit the typical startup founder archetype.

• The author and Patrick continued to meet up for dinners, establishing an easy friendship. Though they had little in common in terms of interests, the author found Patrick’s company relaxing. They mostly met at upscale restaurants where Patrick could easily get reservations.

• The author started to feel their friendship was a bit formal, just centered around dinners, but realized this was the only free time Patrick had in his busy schedule. The author was flattered Patrick made the time to be friends with her, but also made excuses for some of his thoughtless behavior that she would have called out in other friends. She recognized this wasn’t a good trait in herself.

• While walking to meet Patrick for dinner one night, the author ran into a former colleague who claimed they were “army buddies” who had had an emotional moment together. The author did not remember this at all and said so. The colleague shrugged it off, suggesting she wouldn’t remember something so normal.

The key events show the development of the author and Patrick’s friendship, her complicated views on his status, and her strange encounter with her former colleague.

• The narrator runs into a former coworker, a support engineer, who tells her that the CTO of their former company has left and likely become very wealthy by selling his shares. Though they do not actually know if this is true, they find the idea exciting.

• The narrator now works for the “Terms of Service” team at a new company. They deal with objectionable content on the company’s open-source platform, including copyright issues, harassment, and violence. It is difficult and complex work that requires making judgment calls. The team struggles to determine company policies on free speech and censoring content.

• The company is making efforts to diversify. They hire a diversity consultant and critics of the tech industry, including Danilo, who believes Silicon Valley and venture capital will eventually be disrupted as technology becomes more accessible. The narrator finds Danilo’s vision exciting.

• The secretary of Housing and Urban Development visits the company to see their initiative to provide internet access and technology to low-income communities. The narrator observes the contrast between the polished politicians and the casual irreverence of her coworkers. She wonders what it’s like for the secretary to have to cater to the growing power and influence of Silicon Valley.

The summary covers the key details, events, ideas, and reflections in the passage while condensing the overall length. The level of detail and specificity is high enough to give a sense of the content and tone but not so lengthy as to lose the conciseness of a summary.

The author attends a presentation by an analytics startup. She sees photos of a lavish company holiday party on social media and feels left out. She reflects on the peculiar culture of tech companies and their tendency to blur work and play.

Her partner, Ian, works for a large tech company in their secretive robotics division. The company’s culture seems fun but stagnant. Ian has a long commute to work and returns tired and unwell. The author wonders if tech workers suffer from the impermanence and abstraction of their work. She feels similarly ungrounded in her own tech job.

The author meets her friend Patrick for dinner. They often disagree about the tech industry. Patrick argues that while he would prefer if Silicon Valley only produced “meaningful” companies, the sector also funds important work. The author remains skeptical.

The key events are:

• Seeing photos of a tech company holiday party and feeling left out
• Ian’s difficult commute and job at a secretive robotics division
• A debate with Patrick over the ethics and impact of Silicon Valley

The themes are:

• The peculiar and potentially unhealthy culture of tech companies

• The psychological effects of impermanent, abstract tech work

• Skepticism about tech companies and their societal influence

The author attended a rave hosted by friends on a farm in Sacramento. The event was billed as a radical self-reliance gathering. Attendees engaged in various countercultural and New Age-inspired activities like communal nudity, rituals in a creek, ketamine use, and poppers. The author felt a mix of curiosity, skepticism, and loneliness observing the proceedings. She wondered if it was all a performative nostalgia for the freedoms of the ’60s and ’70s counterculture.

The author’s friends outside the tech industry would share articles and express confusion or concern over tech companies’ data collection and psychological experiments. The level of tracking and targeting had become unsettling. The author implies that while Silicon Valley moves fast and breaks things, those outside the bubble are starting to realize what’s really going on. She suggests there may be value in slowing down, regulating the tech industry, and approaching it with more care and responsibility.

The key takeaway is that the pace of technological change has far outstripped society’s ability to grapple with the ethical implications and unintended consequences. The drive for progress and scale above all else is damaging. The author argues for building a more optimistic, inclusive, and significant tech industry that considers impact and sustainability, not just growth.

The author worked at an analytics startup and dealt with disturbing content on an open-source platform, including threats of violence, hate speech, and online harassment targeting her co-workers. She observed how the rhetoric and tactics of different online groups, from far-right commenters to gaming trolls, seemed remarkably similar, as if an entire generation had developed its political identity in toxic online forums.

Meanwhile, the tech industry was transforming San Francisco and the surrounding area. Although tech made up only 10% of jobs, its impact was huge. Rents were rising, longtime residents were being evicted, and the city was turning over quickly. New luxury apartment buildings were going up, offering lavish amenities to appeal to young tech workers. Outside the author’s studio, a pickup truck killed a tree, which was replaced by a portable toilet, highlighting the changes and controversies in the area.

The passage captures the darkness that can emerge from online platforms and communities, as well as the tensions around the tech industry’s effect on cities. The author grapples with these complex issues through her work and observations of the city around her.

• The narrator lives in San Francisco during a housing crisis and tech boom. Rent-controlled apartments are in high demand, and real estate agents frequently solicit interest in selling and flipping properties.

• Many people in tech become interested in “city-building” and think of it like a startup. A man the narrator meets at a party wants to build a “blank slate” city in Central America using tools like self-driving cars, predictive analytics, and drones. He envisions it as a “special economic zone” modeled after Shenzhen.

• The narrator is skeptical of tech people’s interest in rebuilding cities from scratch. She sees their impact on San Francisco as superficial, building “minimalist tea kettles,” “champagne bars,” “coworking clubhouses,” and other amenities mainly for the wealthy. They approach city design from “first principles” but often end up just reinventing existing ideas.

• Reasoning from first principles often leads tech companies to open physical stores after starting as online-only, realizing benefits of in-person retail. But their stores feel somehow “off,” sterile and rushed.

• An accelerator announces plans to build an entirely new metropolis from scratch to “unleash potential” in people by making “better cities.” The narrator is dubious of their ambitions and abilities.

In summary, the narrator is critical of the tech industry’s interest in radically redesigning cities according to their values. She thinks their outlook is superficial, elite, and somewhat misguided, preferring to “stay” in the city she knows rather than live in one built by technologists from scratch according to their vision.

Here are some key points to summarize the effectiveness of a city:

• Key performance indicators (KPIs): Things like economic growth, job growth, access to public transit, affordable housing, education, healthcare, public safety, environmental sustainability, livability, etc. A city should optimize for a balance of these factors.

• Data and metrics: A city needs to collect and analyze data on various KPIs to understand its performance and make data-driven decisions. But the data needs to be used responsibly and ethically.

• Expertise: Running a city requires expertise in areas like public policy, governance, urban planning, public health, education, etc. While technology and entrepreneurial thinking can help, subject matter expertise is critical.

• Balancing priorities: There are many competing priorities for a city, and different stakeholders will have different views. A city needs to find the right balance between things like economic growth, sustainability, affordability, livability, etc. There are no easy answers.

• Avoiding overreach: Some technologists have a tendency to overreach in thinking they can “fix” complex social problems or reengineer entire cities with simple solutions. Cities are extremely complex, and solutions need to be grounded, nuanced and consider history and context.

• Transparency and accountability: For a city to be effective, it needs to be transparent about its priorities, goals and performance, and accountable to citizens and stakeholders. Turning over control of cities to private companies risks losing transparency and accountability.

• Inspiration and effectiveness: An effective city balances inspiration and vision with practical solutions that work. Grand ideas are great, but cities need to focus on incremental progress and continuous improvement. Radical reimaginings of society are unlikely to be effective or resonate with most citizens.

So in summary, an effective city is one that collects and uses data responsibly, taps into expertise, balances priorities thoughtfully, avoids overreach, remains transparent and accountable, and focuses on practical solutions and incremental progress over radical visions. But a city also needs vision and inspiration to engage people and work toward a better future. It’s about balancing all these factors.

• The author attends a party and has a debate with a “rationalist” guest about minority opinions and social change. The author argues that the abolition of slavery was not actually a minority position, pointing out that slaves themselves supported abolition.

• The open-source startup the author works for has recently raised a lot of venture capital funding. This has led to many changes as the company grows rapidly, including leadership turnover, reorganizations, budget cuts, and a more “corporate” culture. Many employees speculate the company may be acquired.

• Some tech workers, including the author’s friend Noah, are interested in socialism and see the potential for labor organizing in the tech industry. However, the author expresses this view to a coworker who argues that tech workers don’t actually need a union and are not really vulnerable. He sees the interest in socialism as performative.

• There is a discussion among remote employees at the company lobbying for more perks and benefits to match what employees at the San Francisco headquarters receive, like snacks, housekeeping services, and business class flights.

The key themes are the debate over minority opinions and social change; the effects of venture capital funding and rapid growth on a startup’s culture; the prospect of labor organizing and socialism in the tech industry; and tensions between remote and on-site employees.

Here’s a summary:

• The narrator works for a popular tech company and knows many engineers and programmers. She attended a birthday party for her friend Patrick, who is an engineer. The party was held at a horse camp, though no horses actually attended.
• The narrator feels out of place at the party, as most attendees are involved in tech and engineering. She often feels awkward discussing her job in customer support with them. At the party, she tries to join conversations but also finds herself getting argumentative at times due to feeling insecure. However, she behaves politely at the party.
• Patrick is admired by many at the party and people listen intently when he speaks. He shows off continuous glucose monitors he obtained, though he does not have diabetes. The narrator and her partner Ian find this strange.
• The narrator was looking forward to camping out, drinking, and conversing with everyone late into the evening. However, she and Ian were the only ones who brought a tent. The rest of the attendees packed up and left shortly after singing “Happy Birthday.”
• The narrator reflects that many in San Francisco, especially those in tech, live a lifestyle reminiscent of people in their 20s for many years. She and some coworkers are approaching middle age but still go out frequently and delay typical adult milestones. However, the narrator is starting to want different things, like a home.
• The climate and environment of Northern California make the passage of time feel strange and hard to track for the narrator. Many try to live in the present moment.

The key themes are: working in tech/engineering and related lifestyle, delaying adulthood or life milestones common in other places, feeling out of sync with the dominant culture, and struggling with the sense of time passing.

The narrator and her friend Ian go camping at an abandoned stable in Marin County. After their friends leave for the evening, they debate going back home but ultimately decide to stay. The narrator reflects on her friend Patrick, a successful tech entrepreneur, and her complicated feelings about the tech industry. She worries that as Patrick and his friends gain more power and influence, their public personas and politics may change in ways she disagrees with. She considers her own possible future in the tech industry but worries she may have to sacrifice parts of herself to advance.

The narrator believes many young tech entrepreneurs have a secret vulnerability or yearning beneath their ambition and success. She wants to sympathize with them and believe they will help build a better future as they gain power. However, she comes to realize the system itself is the real problem, not any individual. The young tech entrepreneurs believe in their own ideas and potential; they see the world as full of opportunities and believe in progress. In contrast, the narrator has a yearning for meaning that remains unfulfilled.

As the 2016 election approaches, the narrator and her peers in the tech industry naively believe things will work out in their favor. They donate money and encourage people to vote at the last minute but are ultimately complacent and overconfident in their power and influence. The narrator realizes both the tech entrepreneurs and her own set were delusional in thinking they could steer the course of history.

You felt foolish for believing the optimistic narrative around the election and tech industry. At the beginning of November, you were unaware of chatter about a conspiracy theory relating to leaked emails and a sex-trafficking ring. Your teammates were handling content moderation, but you felt grateful for them.

You met a friend, Patrick, for dinner. He asked if there was trouble ahead for tech, referencing a popular book series about an ominous threat. You said tech would be fine, though some companies may struggle. Patrick seemed exhausted and didn’t offer his usual optimistic perspective. You later learned his startup had raised funding at a high valuation, making him a billionaire.

You unsuccessfully asked a developer if they could expose information about the conspiracy theory. Feeling childish, you weren’t sure what you wanted.

You went to Reno, Nevada to volunteer for the election. With friends and a coworker, you posted on social media from an undersea-themed casino but didn’t gamble. You went door-to-door but most didn’t answer. Some expressed disinterest in voting. Celebrity social media posts and feminist products had given you an optimistic but unrealistic sense of the election.

The election results were a shock. In the aftermath, your social circles were distressed and turned to escapism. Tech industry leaders advocated for immigration and encryption, trying to solve problems with more tech.

In summary, you felt foolish for believing in the optimistic narrative and hype around the tech industry and election. The results were jarring, showing how oblivious and unrealistic you and your peers had been.

• The author worked as a policy analyst at a large tech company in San Francisco for several years. The job involved regulating content and addressing issues like online abuse, misinformation, and privacy.
• The tech industry and Silicon Valley culture during this time was characterized by excess, overwork, burnout, and inequality. The author felt disillusioned and left her job in 2018 to become a writer.
• After leaving, the author’s former company sold for over $7 billion. While she and some former colleagues made money from stock options, others - especially women and non-technical employees - were unable to benefit much due to unequal compensation practices.
• The CEO of another startup the author had worked for previously stepped down, citing exhaustion. However, he and other executives eventually returned to the company, showing their dedication to the work.
• The author reflects on the “emotional drag” and repetition of working in tech policy, as well as her complicated feelings about the industry’s success and failures. While aspects of the culture and work were deeply troubling, she also felt a pull to return to what was familiar.
• Ultimately, the author seems to suggest that the tech industry’s problems with inequality, overwork, and amorality are features, not bugs. Systems are working the way they were designed, for better or worse. Her story illustrates how even those within the system can feel trapped by its momentum and unsure of how to enact change.

In summary, the passage gives a first-hand account of working in Silicon Valley tech during a transformative time. It highlights issues of inequality, excess, and ethical ambiguity that have come to define aspects of the industry and culture. The author’s complex perspective - both drawn to and repelled by this world - provides an insightful view into the experiences of tech workers grappling with these challenging topics.

Here is a summary of the author’s acknowledgements:

The author expresses gratitude to the following people:

• Various editors and writers for their editorial insight and intellectual generosity: Daniel Levin Becker, Molly Fischer, Henry Freedland, Jen Gann, Sam MacLaughlin, Manjula Martin, Emily Nakashima, Meaghan O’Connell, Hannah Schneider, and Taylor Sperry.

• Early supporters: Nick Friedman, Moira Weigel, and Gideon Lewis-Kraus.

• Mark Krotov for editing and support. Dayna Tortorici for encouraging the author to write about San Francisco and startup culture. The magazine n+1 for taking a chance on the author.

• The author’s agent, Chris Parris-Lamb, for developing the book alongside the author and providing support. Sarah Bolling and others for helping bring the book to international readers.

• The author’s editor, Emily Bell, and the team at MCD / Farrar, Straus and Giroux for believing in and advocating for the project. Others who worked on the manuscript including Rebecca Caine.

• Jason Richman and others at UTA. Michael De Luca Productions and Brownstone Productions. Sara’o Bery for advice.

• Emily Stokes for working closely on the book and providing feedback. Various publications and editors for giving the author a place to continue writing about tech culture. Other individuals who provided insight or editing support: Carla Blumenkranz, Anthony Lydgate, Daniel Zalewski, Joshua Rothman.

• Various friends for their trust and support. Former coworkers who spoke with the author for the project. Friends in California and New York who helped the author think through various topics.

• The author’s family, including parents, siblings, and partner Ian Sherman for their love, support, and guidance.