Corey Pein (Author)
A scathing, sardonic
exploration of Silicon Valley tech culture, laying bare the greed,
hubris, and retrograde politics of an industry that aspires to radically
transform society for its own benefit
At the
height of the startup boom, journalist Corey Pein set out for Silicon
Valley with little more than a smartphone and his wits. His goal: to
learn how such an overhyped industry could possibly sustain itself as
long as it has. But to truly understand the delirious reality of the
tech entrepreneurs, he knew he would have to inhabit that perspective―he
would have to become an entrepreneur himself. Thus Pein begins his
journey―skulking through gimmicky tech conferences, pitching his
over-the-top business ideas to investors, and rooming with a succession
of naive upstart programmers whose entire lives are managed by their
employers―who work endlessly and obediently, never thinking to question
their place in the system.
In showing us this frantic world, Pein
challenges the positive, feel-good self-image that the tech tycoons have
crafted―as nerdy and benevolent creators of wealth and
opportunity―revealing their self-justifying views and their insidious
visions for the future. Vivid and incisive, Live Work Work Work Die is a troubling portrait of a self-obsessed industry bent on imposing its disturbing visions on the rest of us.
