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Anna Wiener on her book “Uncanny Valley”
- russler23 7y agoEssay from n+1 that led to the book: https://nplusonemag.com/issue-25/on-the-fringe/uncanny-valley/ https://nplusonemag.com/issue-25/on-the-fringe/uncanny-valle... (As literary magazine names go, “n+1” is pretty relatable haha)
- BoiledCabbage 7y agoReally incredible writing. I can absolutely see why this turned into a book. Also the self reflection of being in the industry is notable.
- anongraddebt 7y agoIt's also semi-unnerving for what it portends regarding the possibility of deep rot in our political economy. Yes, we've seen treatments like this before. Yes, the author is probably missing the mark a bit (or missing it even more if you're an optimist or realist or whatever). But still. I recently read a number of historical treatments of the late gilded age and the roaring twenties, as well as some notable treatments of 20th century American history that partially covered that era, or provided additional insight into it (e.g. "The Glory and The Dream"). There are two strong impressions of that era that jump out from the historical literature. They are something like: "where are the adults?" and "business activity at full-speed, moving nowhere at all".
- 0x262d 7y agoone of the best-written essays I’ve ever read and helped cement my tech skepticism. I highly recommend it.
- creaghpatr 7y agoEssay is pretty incredible, I'll be buying the book.
- Clubber 7y agoAfter reading the article, SV screams "phony," al la Holden Caulfield.
- graedus 7y agoAdding to the chorus: this was superb and I'm looking forward to the book. Here's the HN post from April 2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11565691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11565691
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- cossatot 7y agoA similar article by another author, though a bit shorter, for anyone interested: "The Metrics of Backpacks" by Victoria Gannon https://www.artpractical.com/column/the-metrics-of-backpacks/ https://www.artpractical.com/column/the-metrics-of-backpacks...
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- spoovy 7y ago"Throughout the memoir, there are moments when Wiener acquiesces to male characters’ demands only to correct her course with a renewed sense of agency. In a memorable scene, she goes out to a Japanese bar with her mostly male co-workers to celebrate their boss’s birthday, conceiving of herself as the “babysitter, fifth wheel, chaperone, little sister, ball and chain, and concubine”. She explains: “I was always trying to be someone’s girlfriend, sister or mother.”" Yawn.
- blfr 7y agoMaybe the writeup doesn't do book justice but it all sounds like boiler plate views journalists have on SV with no real insight. Mike Judge probably doesn't have to worry about any competition even after the series ended.
- BoiledCabbage 7y agoThat write up / article is terrible, but the sample of writing that russler23 linked above from n+1 was really very good.
- dragonwriter 7y ago> Maybe the writeup doesn't do book justice but it all sounds like boiler plate views journalists have on SV with no real insight. It's from someone with experience in the environment, so maybe it's just that the “boilerplate views” are common because they accurately reflect the situation, which would itself be a valuable (though uncomfortable to the same people that like to dismiss the perspective as “boilerplate views”) insight.
- blfr 7y agoThe boilerplate views do not accurately reflect the situation. For example, Essentially, she says: “It’s important to remember that Google is an ad platform and that Facebook is a surveillance platform.” Google does indeed run an ad platform. But that's like calling any magazine or newspaper an ad platform. True, yet neither accurate nor interesting. And don't get me wrong. I'm all for adblocking and razing Facebook to the ground. But I don't want to read empty mood affiliation pieces.
- ForHackernews 7y agoC'mon, Google is an ad platform. Everything Google does that isn't selling ads is a rounding error next to the ads. At least newspapers and magazines have subscribers that pay directly for the content. In fact, since Google and Facebook have eaten their advertising lunch, legacy publishers are more dependent on subscription revenue: https://medium.com/the-graph/advertising-vs-subscription-a4200642842e https://medium.com/the-graph/advertising-vs-subscription-a42...
- supahfly_remix 7y agoI've seen this type of book before, a liberal arts major's take on Silicon Valley. I'm sure it has clever prose, literary references, overrought descriptions of excess, etc. written with a mild sense of superiority but I wonder if it covers new ground.
- smt88 7y agoWhat is your take on the show Silicon Valley? Do you think it's accurate, despite being satire?
- supahfly_remix 7y agoIt was comedy, and I took it as such. The writers did a good job of poking fun at Silicon Valley while making relatable characters. I can't speak to its accuracy, since I haven't worked in Silicon Valley for a long time. What did you think of it?
- gamblor956 7y agoThe author of the book had more experience in Silicon Valley than the creators of Silicon Valley did...
- smt88 7y agoI haven't lived/worked in SV, but have hated my limited experiences dealing with the culture there. I have been told (and seen many times on HN) that the show is closer to a documentary than a satire. That's anecdata, obviously. It reminds me of the (satirical) show Veep, which had to rewrite an entire season because it was too similar to what the actual US White House had done.
- ViViDboarder 7y agoThe creator, Mike Judge, was actually a Silicon Valley software engineer, albeit very briefly and in the 80s. That’s where some of the ideas for Office Space came from as well. My take is that it’s accurate enough. They touch on thing a that are real and then blow them out of proportion for humor.
- Pigo 7y agoIt's so aggravating going to these news sites. It's almost as bad as the days of search bars installed in your browser. I'm not on the biggest screen in the world, but I can't even see the title of the article. https://i.imgur.com/UYT7qpN.png https://i.imgur.com/UYT7qpN.png I've been to plenty of other sites just as bad too. It instantly kills my desire find the article and read it.
- 4AoZqrH2fsk5UB 7y agoUse ublock origin and invest time in zapping the offending divs for the sites you frequent. Within a few weeks you'll find the internet a much more pleasant place.
- Pigo 7y agoI will check that out, don't believe I've heard of it. I can utilize tools like these to make things easier for myself. But this view is what the average new reader experiences, it's surprising that they don't care more about that.
- 4AoZqrH2fsk5UB 7y agotrue. also firefox has a "reader mode" that strips everything away... but you have to click to activate. for reference, this[0] is what the above page looked like when I landed on it [0]: https://imgur.com/a/LyeybN2 https://imgur.com/a/LyeybN2
- alasarmas 7y agoWhat's the right way to use UBO to zap divs that have some sort of random identifier appended to prevent zapping? Is there a regex match mode?
- Lammy 7y agoMaybe try a CSS selector based off of the next parent element that does have a permanent identifier? first-child/nth-child and friends can get you a long way.
- mlthoughts2018 7y agoThe bigger satire here is upstart liberal arts kid thinking a few years of experience is sufficient to launch a sanctimonious book (called “Uncanny Valley” no less). It’s like she doesn’t realize she is herself a trope character straight out of a Douglas Coupland novel, and a core part of the whole problematic ecosystem she is criticizing.
- itsEtai 7y agoShe is self aware. In the article she talks about a few roles she’s played. Is your criticism about lack of experience? IMO, new players in a system are often have clearer perspective than entrenched dinosaurs. Looking forward to reading about your Character in the book ;)
- Zenst 7y agoYes new people do have that vinegar, then over time pretty much all of them just go with the system and pension surf mentality, learn how to be seen to be busy, all the office political tricks and what to say and not say and get all the promotions. Then there are those who still give a damn, who either burnout or burn speaking out. It's a pattern in many walks of working life with office space.
- ameister14 7y agoThis is an interesting quandary you present - if you can't write a book without many years of experience, but you also cannot write a book if you are a part of the 'problematic ecosystem,' when can you? How can you get experience in a system without ever being part of that system?
- mlthoughts2018 7y agoIf you work for a long time in a broken system and really have something to say, you could write that book. This author doesn’t have anything to say. It’s the expose equivalent of junk food meant to catch onto some zeitgeisty populism to win fame. I think part of what makes the author part of the problem is the mixture of lack of experience with myopic delusion that what she has to say matters despite that. It’s the same problem many start-up founders and venture capital have that beget all the very things she’s writing about.
- Zenst 7y agoIs Silicon Valley represented solely by startups these days?
- duxup 7y agoPerspective is a problem even on HN. You have the folks who only think of FANG as far as anything tech / coding practices goes.... or only think of their greenfield startup as how things are done. Or that everything is some ultra deep back end computer science project ... and they bring those points of view to everything (that isn't necessarily bad or good). Granted, all that variety is nice, but I suspect a lot of the grass roots coding world just isn't quite what we see on HN.
- blfr 7y agoThis common criticism misses the fact that FANG, and greenfield startups, and even HN, set the tone for much of the tech industry. It is very likely that these grass root coders are or will be in the coming years using the very tools, methodologies, and even business practices devised in the Valley.
- duxup 7y agoThey certainly do those things. I think they also are a bit of a rabbit hole / and plenty of their tone never reaches the wider world while they chase new and shiny things.
- zwieback 7y agoIn popular culture, yes. If you count up the sales or revenue numbers of very large companies then there are lots of the old companies left. I work for hp and I would also consider Intel, Apple and many of the chip suppliers as part of the original silicon valley. My dad worked for Shockley when SV started so for me it's hard to consider the FANG companies as "silicon" valley companies at all although they are shaping our lives just as much or even more as the previous generations of companies started there.
- murphy214 7y agowell this feels smug
- wpietri 7y agoPhysician, heal thyself.
- ChrisMarshallNY 7y agoIt's interesting. She sounds like a pro writer. I wonder if her four years were really research for a planned book. That kind of thing is very common. If so, it's paid off. She's hot news, right now. Being exec producer on a movie before the book is even out, is sort of...Silicon Valley. My own perspective is kinda weird, and I don't pretend to be an expert in the culture. I started programming in 1983, with machine code, and I've been doing this stuff a very long time. As I look around at folks in the industry, I see that it is a very long time, indeed. There's not many people with the length of time in the industry I have (which is not necessarily something that has been beneficial to me). I spent most of my career at a top-shelf Japanese corporation. It was a frustrating, but also awesome, experience that has almost no analogue at all with Silicon Valley culture. It was basically a "silo." After leaving that company a couple of years ago, I have been acclimating to a vastly changed landscape. It's been rather eye-opening. The one thing that has struck me the most, is that money seems to have become rather corrosive, while also energizing. It powers a lot of growth, innovation and energy, but also brings with it an almost complete moral vacuum. The Japanese corporation had many flaws, but I was impressed by their focus on teamwork and almost insanely high ethical standards (It was a very "old-fashioned" company). I regularly worked (and argued) with some of the most brilliant scientists and engineers in the world. I like the energy, and I think some of the tools and techniques that have developed are really nice, but I have been rather taken aback by the manner in which our culture is expressed, these days. It's very different from the rather "scrappy" and hopeful way we thought about things back when. I'm figuring out how to navigate the new world. I need to learn how to work in the fast-paced, cutthroat culture, while holding to my ethical compass, and my workflow.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago" I wonder if her four years were really research for a planned book." Given that she worked at various startups in tech for four years, and the classic whiteboard/algo/coding/etc. required, that's quite a bar purely for a single book.
- ChrisMarshallNY 7y agoShe wasn’t a coder.
- ollieglass 7y agoAnna Wiener will be talking at some events in SF, NY and other places soon https://twitter.com/annawiener/status/1205176302149484545 https://twitter.com/annawiener/status/1205176302149484545
- commandlinefan 7y ago> left her job at the software development platform GitHub What is it about GitHub in particular that attracts these activists?
- GaryNumanVevo 7y agoIf by activist, you mean an excellent writer providing an accurate reflection, that anyone working the bay area the past 10 years can relate to?
- commandlinefan 7y agoThe headline says "I want this book to be politically useful". Sounds pretty activist-y to me.
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- deith 7y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11049319 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11049319
- zeckalpha 7y agoPerhaps the inverse should be asked: what is it about GitHub that “activates” people and drives them out?
- irq11 7y agoWhomever changed the headline should change it to something that accurately reflects the content, like it was before. Nobody who doesn’t already know Anna Weiner or Uncanny Valley would understand the meaning of the headline.
- dang 7y agoI changed the headline because the site guidelines call for titles to be changed when they're baity, as "the explosive memoir exposing Silicon Valley" is. That doesn't mean I changed it to anything optimal—I'm at an event this morning and doing moderatory things on breaks, so everything is hastier than normal. If anyone can suggest a better title—that means more accurate and neutral, preferably using representative language from the article—we can happily change it again.
- jagged-chisel 7y ago"Anna Wiener, and her book 'Uncanny Valley'" comma grammar at your discretion
- irq11 7y agoUncanny Valley: a GitHub employee’s memoir on silicon valley.
- irq11 7y agoHow in the world is this not an accurate title?
- Wowfunhappy 7y agoI like this, but I would change "and" to "on", since it's an interview. "Anna Wiener on her book 'Uncanny Valley'"
- dang 7y agoWe'll use that above. Thanks!
- ppod 7y ago>To illustrate this point she highlights public goods or services that are increasingly privatised, like for-profit coding boot camps, which are marketed as an investment or a substitute for a four-year university degree. “The tech industry is trying to provide solutions to crises that they didn’t necessarily create, but that they are now exacerbating. This is a good example of how lines of thought like the author's that purport to be democratic socialist are actually committed to maintaining the institutions that entrench existing inequalities in cultural, social (and of course, financial) capital.
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y agoWhat's socialist about VC-backed “bootcamps”?
- jagged-chisel 7y agoBit of context since the title needs improvement: Anna Wiener, a former GitHub employee, authors a book titled "Uncanny Valley" about "Unregulated surveillance, ruthless bosses, sexual harassment..." in Silicon Valley. Also, from TFA: "in January 2018, Universal Pictures optioned film rights; the screenplay is now in its initial development stages and Wiener is executive producer."
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- turk73 7y agoI read the article. I have no respect for this "oh poor me" woman. It's no easier for men in Tech--the whole business is a minefield that you have to run through at full speed. It's not a place for everyone. Everything in the story has her cant on it. That's not reality for the majority of people who are trying to make their mark on the world or just make money in SV. Let's understand another thing: When attractive men hit on women, it's not sexual harassment, only when the ones they don't prefer do it is it a problem. I think it's more just that this woman couldn't perform in her job or socially and is now blaming everyone else. OMG, a man might give you unwanted attention? Katy, bar the door! Her parents are assholes: "Gun control advocate in NY" is about all I needed to hear to understand what kind of fools raised this woman. City folk! I know some people applaud these "progressive" bona fides, but they miss the fact that this is the destruction of our civil rights in process. Might as well call them "Anti-Civil-Rights Activists." Cuomo made my father an overnight felon in NY State. No forgiveness for that, thanks activist assholes traitors!