Uncanny Valley: A Memoir

Research showed little correlation between productivity and extended working hours, but the tech industry thrived on the idea of its own exceptionalism; the data did not apply to us.

They gave inspirational talks about the toxicity of meetings and waxed poetic about the transcendence of collaboration. They parlayed their personal experiences into universal truths.

Nobody cares about your tech job, the flyers read. Be courteous of others when in public and keep the feral careerism of your collegial banter on mute.

For a long time, I harbored the belief that there was a yearning at the heart of entrepreneurial ambition, a tender dimension that no one wanted to acknowledge. Some spiritual aspect beneath the in-office yoga classes and meditation apps and selective Stoicism and circular thought-leading. How else to explain the rituals and congregations, the conf

But for those who seemed to be emerging from the wreckage victorious—namely, those of us who had secured a place in an industry that had steamrolled its way to relevance—the meritocracy narrative was a cover for lack of structural analysis.

Working in tech without a technical background felt like moving to a foreign country without knowing the language.

first time they wrote a functional line of code. The system belonged to them; the computer would do their bidding. They were in control. They could build everything they’d ever imagined. They talked about achieving flow, a sustained state of mental absorption and joyful focus, like a runner’s high obtained without having to exercise. I loved that t

It seemed stressful to me, cultivating a public image, or a personal aesthetic—like the sort of mind-set that could lead a person to worry during sex about whether the lighting was sufficiently cinematic.

Good interface design was like magic, or religion: it cultivated the mass suspension of disbelief.