A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2020. Named one of
the Best Books of 2020 by The Washington Post The Atlantic NPR the Los Angeles Times ELLE
Esquire Parade Teen Vogue The Boston Globe Forbes The Times (UK) Fortune Chicago Tribune
Glamour The A.V. Club Vox Jezebel Town & Country OneZero Apartment Therapy Good
Housekeeping PopMatters Electric Literature Self The Week (UK) and BookPage. A New York
Times Book Review Editors' Choice and a January 2020 IndieNext Pick. A definitive document of a
world in transition: I won't be alone in returning to it for clarity and consolation for many
years to come. --Jia Tolentino author of Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion The
prescient page-turning account of a journey in Silicon Valley: a defining memoir of our
digital age In her mid-twenties at the height of tech industry idealism Anna Wiener-stuck
broke 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 amidst 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. Part
coming-of-age-story part portrait of an already-bygone era Anna Wiener's memoir is a rare
first-person glimpse into 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
democracy-endangering liability alongside a personal narrative of aspiration ambivalence and
disillusionment. Unsparing and incisive Uncanny Valley is a cautionary tale and a revelatory
interrogation of a world reckoning with consequences its unwitting designers are only beginning
to understand.
