With the new movie coming out about Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos, “You Can See Everything,” as well as “The Social Reckoning” about Facebook, I’ve become intrigued by tales of these huge corporations coming out of Silicon Valley. Unicorns, some call them. Here are some books detailing the history of some of these companies.
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
“The full inside story of the breathtaking rise and shocking collapse of a multibillion-dollar startup, by the prize-winning journalist who first broke the story and pursued it to the end in the face of pressure and threats from the CEO and her lawyers.“
Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley by Antonio Garcia Martinez
“Liar’s Poker meets The Social Network in an irreverent exposé of life inside the tech bubble, from industry provocateur Antonio García Martínez, a former Twitter advisor, Facebook product manager and startup founder/CEO.“
The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley by Jimmy Soni
“Today, PayPal’s founders and earliest employees are considered the technology industry’s most powerful network. Since leaving PayPal, they have formed, funded, and advised the leading companies of our era, including Tesla, Facebook, YouTube, SpaceX, Yelp, Palantir, and LinkedIn, among many others.“
The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy by Gil Duran
“A fearless and urgent chronicle of the tech-authoritarian movement from its early days in San Francisco politics to its current moment on the international stage, exploring the wild and dystopian ambition of the technocrats at its center, and offering a road map to resistance.“
The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World by Brad Stone
“The Upstarts is the definitive account of a dawning age of tenacity, creativity, conflict and wealth. In Brad Stone’s highly anticipated and riveting account of the most radical companies of the new Silicon Valley, we find out how it all started, and how the world is wildly different than it was ten years ago.“
The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and the Rise of the Silicon Valley Oligarchs by Max Chafkin
“A biography of venture capitalist and entrepreneur Peter Thiel, the enigmatic, controversial, and hugely influential power broker who sits at the dynamic intersection of tech, business, and politics“
Valley of Genius: The Uncensored History of Silicon Valley by Adam Fisher
“A candid, colorful, and comprehensive oral history that reveals the secrets of Silicon Valley — from the origins of Apple and Atari to the present day clashes of Google and Facebook, and all the start-ups and disruptions that happened along the way.“
An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination by Sheera Frenkel & Cecilia Kang
“Award-winning New York Times reporters Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang unveil the tech story of our times in a riveting, behind-the-scenes exposé that offers the definitive account of Facebook’s fall from grace.“
Kings of Crypto: One Startup’s Quest to Take Cryptocurrency Out of Silicon Valley and Onto Wall Street by Jeff John Roberts
“…keenly observes the world of virtual currencies and what happens when startups try to disrupt the world of high finance. Clear explanations of crypto technology are woven into an amazing landscape full of meme-fueled startup hijinks, hacking (so much hacking!), shady investors, government investigations, billionaire bros and their Lambos, and closed-door meetings with Jamie Dimon. This is the surprising story of the origins of cryptocurrency and how it is changing money forever.“
The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World by Max Fisher
“…tracking the high-stakes inside story of how Big Tech’s breakneck race to drive engagement—and profits—at all costs fractured the world.”
Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley by Jacob Silverman
“A searing insight into the political radicalization of Silicon Valley, from Elon Musk to Peter Thiel, JD Vance and Donald Trump, and how it will affect the future of all our lives.“
The Big Score: The Billion Dollar Story of Silicon Valley by Michael S. Malone
“The only contemporary history of the birth of Silicon Valley, from the reporter who had a ringside seat to it all.“
Broken Code: Inside Facebook and the Fight to Expose Its Harmful Secrets by Jeff Horwitz
“Expanding on “The Facebook Files,” his blockbuster, award-winning series for The Wall Street Journal, reporter Jeff Horwitz lays out in sobering detail not just the architecture of Facebook’s failures, but what the company knew (and often disregarded) about its societal impact.“
Algospeak: How Social Media is Transforming the Future of Language by Adam Aleksic
“From linguist Adam Aleksic, known as @etymologynerd on social media, comes a captivating exploration of how internet algorithms are transforming language and communication in unprecedented ways.“
Leave a Reply