Live Work Work Work Die: A Journey into the Savage Heart of Silicon Valley

Description

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. Determined to cut through the cliches of big tech-the relentless optimism, the incessant repetition of vacuous buzzwords-Pein decided that he would need to take an approach as unorthodox as the companies he would soon be covering. To truly understand the delirious reality of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, he knew, he would have to inhabit that perspective-he would have to become an entrepreneur. Thus he begins his journey-skulking through gimmicky tech conferences, pitching his over-the-top business ideas to investors, and interviewing a cast of outrageous characters: cyborgs and con artists, Teamsters and transhumanists, jittery hackers and 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 self-image that the tech tycoons have crafted-as benevolent creators of wealth and opportunity-to reveal 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.

Corey Pein is a regular contributor to The Baffler, where he writes a column and hosts the podcast "News from Nowhere." A longtime investigative reporter and former staff writer for the Willamette Week, he has also written for Slate, Salon, Foreign Policy, The American Prospect, and the Columbia Journalism Review, among other publications. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

"In the spirit of George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, Corey Pein takes us on a gonzo misadventure through the underbelly of Silicon Valley, exposing the dystopian comedy behind the techno optimism with wry observation and gleeful contempt. A helluva ride." --Joe Hagan, author of Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine "All praise to Corey Pein for jumping headfirst into the cesspool of Silicon Valley and returning without having lost his mind or sold his soul. His reports from the front lines of the startup frenzy are hilarious and terrifying. While all eyes are glued on President Trump, a shortsighted and reactionary techno-oligarchy aims to amass a fortune at the cost of the common good. There's no app that can save us. But this book can at least wake us up to the dystopian future under construction." --Astra Taylor, author of The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age "Pein's absurdly funny journey is a Through-the-Looking-Glass tale for the dying days of tech utopianism. Built on the creative vanity of this new class of talentless speculator and designed entirely without human need in mind, this world of nonsense quickly turns dystopian when seen from the perspective of a worker and renter trying to make his way through it." --Angela Nagle, author of Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars From 4Chan And Tumblr To Trump And The Alt-Right "You sleep in a pantry because you can't afford a real apartment. You exploit yourself, destroy your health, and ruin the lives of millions when you finally succeed. You think of crime as a great business model. You embrace some of the worst politics ever devised. And you call it progress. Silicon Valley, the capitalist miracle. That is the American nightmare as Corey Pein brilliantly describes it, and it is not a work of the imagination. This is really happening, and soon it will be happening to you." --Thomas Frank, author of Listen, Liberal and What's the Matter with Kansas? "Deeply unsettling . . . A clearheaded reckoning with the consequences of the tech industry's disruptions and the ideology that undergirds it." --Kirkus Reviews "Like Jon Ronson, Pein combines serious journalism with humor and his own antics for an entertaining and caustic mix. If Silicon Valley and Black Mirror had a book baby, it would be Live Work Work Work Die." --Booklist "All praise to Corey Pein for jumping headfirst into the cesspool of Silicon Valley and returning without having lost his mind or sold his soul. His reports from the front lines of the startup frenzy are hilarious and terrifying in turn. While all eyes are glued on President Trump, a shortsighted, hubristic, and downright reactionary techno-oligarchy (and the army of sycophants and wannabes they've inspired) aims to amass a fortune at the cost of the common good. Unfortunately, there's no app that can save us. But this book can at least wake us up to the dystopian future currently under construction." -- Astra Taylor, author of The People's Platform