Anna Wiener | Uncanny Valley

Anna Wiener's Uncanny Valley is one of the most anticipated books of the year, described by Sweetbitter author Stephanie Danler as a "generation-defining account" of her time in Silicon Valley. After she leaves book publishing in New York for work at a San Francisco big-data startup, Wiener arrived in the midst of 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, one that enriched itself at the expense of the idyllic future it claimed to be building.
Join us in the Rare Book Room for a conversation about this unsparing and incisive look into the dream-world of Northern California from an up-and-coming writer.
Anna Wiener is a contributing writer to The New Yorker online, where she writes about Silicon Valley, startup culture, and technology. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, New York, The New Republic, and n+1, as well as in Best American Nonrequired Reading 2017. She lives in San Francisco. Uncanny Valley is her first book.
Laura Marsh is the literary editor of The New Republic and co-host of the podcast The Politics of Everything. She has written for the New York Review of Books, Dissent, Bookforum, The Times Literary Supplement and Literary Review. Previously she was an editor at the New York Review of Books.
Recorded January 15, 2020

[@wings8099]

this was fascinating to listen to. when I read the book, it felt so seamless, infuriating but beautiful at the same time. I especially liked her voicing out her opinions about the problems inherent in tech and tech roles, I think maybe because it hasn't become commonplace to voice out disagreement over an industry that basically pays very well. im personally trying to figure out how to have an "ethical" career in tech, and Uncanny Valley gave me a lot of insights I can carry with me in this journey.

[@gcooper642]

This is a book of lists. Just that first part she read out was lists of things about the men. The whole book is like this. Lists and lists.

[@sailaway258]

Great video! Was this the bookstore in nyc