Uncanny Valley : a memoir
(Playaway)

Title from container.

"HD."

"Light."

Previously released by Macmillan Audio, ℗2020.

Release date supplied by publisher.

Issued on Playaway, a dedicated audio media player.

One set of earphones and one AAA battery required for listening.

Read by Suehyla El-Attar.

"In her mid-twenties, at the height of tech-industry idealism, Anna Wiener -- restless 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 during 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, and enriching 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, Uncanny Valley is a rare first-person glimpse into the 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 democracyendangering liability, alongside a personal narrative of aspiration, ambivalence, and disillusionment."--,Provided by publisher.