Book of the week
Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener (Fourth Estate, $34)
There are already a large number of Silicon Valley memoirs. But unlike most of its peers, Uncanny Valley is not interested in namedropping and corporate buccaneering. It contains little business advice, and will not be of much use to the next generation of hustling would-be gurus. Instead, it is a cool, witty, incisive dissection of an industry and culture which has asked ‘‘forgiveness, not permission’’ while imposing its beliefs across the whole world. It is
also an affecting story of a young woman’s personal change and disenchantment: The Devil Wears Prada with LSD and sleeveless fleece jackets.
‘‘Tech promised what so few other industries or institutions could, at the time,’’ writes Wiener: ‘‘A future.’’ Her account begins in 2012, the year Facebook went public, but back then she wasn’t paying attention. At 25, she is a downtrodden member of New York City’s ‘‘assistant class’’, welleducated but paid a pittance, working in publishing, being overtaken by peers with generational wealth. She lives an ‘‘affectedly analogue’’ life, taking
photographs on film, and dating woodworkers, acoustic guitarists and an ‘‘experimental baker’’. A chance job at an ebook start-up offers a sudden portal to San Francisco. Her old friends, who disdain capitalism, feel she has sold out. But secretly, she is glad to be doing something ‘‘ambitious’’ and soon she is intoxicated by the Californian ideology (as well as the salary).
Uncanny Valley reads like the final report of a deep cover agent of the publishing world from inside its mortal enemy. She writes with a flat effect that mirrors the anodyne unreality of digital products, but punctures that surface with quietly
savage turns of phrase and sudden, bittersweet admissions. She nails the quasi-religious, cult-like aura that attaches to Valley ‘‘thought leaders’’, as well as the hypocrisy of chief executives who lecture their employees about ‘‘wanting it’’ and being ‘‘a family’’ while manipulating their emotions.
Her descriptions of techies’ quirky lifestyles – their ‘‘biohacking’’, their sex parties, their hyperproductive spirituality – are also extremely funny, which is a considerable achievement when considering how long the world has now been laughing at these habits. One effective tactic is to never say the name of any
company or prominent individual, even when it is perfectly obvious. Shorn of their brands, globespanning tech titans stand equal to doomed dog-walking apps and services for renting out driveways: all equally anonymous, equally bizarre, and equally questionable in their diversion of talent and capital towards the ever-moreefficient fulfilment of rich Westerners’ desires (but not necessarily, says Wiener, their needs). Meanwhile, Wiener has a front-row seat to the rise of a new form of political activism, involving digitally enabled, leaderless harassment campaigns, which starts off targeting women in
the video games industry and ends up helping to elect the 45th US president.
Misogyny is never really absent: women in this book are continually belittled and exploited, in both crude and subtle ways. The notion of ‘‘Silicon Valley’’ becomes contentious instead of utopian, a flashpoint for people’s resentments and fears and not just a convenient receptacle for their hopes.
In the end, Uncanny Valley’s conclusions are sadder, more personal, reflecting on any reader who has ever allowed themselves to swallow a whole belief system alongside a paycheque.
– Laurence Dodds, The Telegraph