Voices from the Valley

"""[Voices from the Valley] gives us a sharper view into the perspectives of those who shape so much of our world today . . . [The interviews] add complexity to the often self-flattering narratives the tech industry tells about itself . . . The lessons provided in Voices from the Valley are more insightful than those in any of the hagiographies we're usually served up about tech founders."" --Clio Chang, The Nation ""Tarnoff and Weigel are skilled interviewers, able to coax ambling conversations centered on the small-talk-killing question 'What do you do?' into odd and delightful directions . . . I found myself wanting to read these people's memoirs. They come alive, even in anonymity, and for Tarnoff and Weigel, that's a sign of a job well done."" --Gregory Barber, Wired ""One of the many virtues of Voices from the Valley, Moira Weigel and Ben Tarnoff's curiously unputdownable anthology of testimonies from tech workers, is the quality of attention in which it trains us . . . [stokes] curiosity and anger in equal measure . . . this collection shows just how much listening can do."" --Leah Price, Public Books ""Tarnoff and Weigel use crisp, knowing interviews to address the labor and class ferment percolating beneath the tech industry's sleek exterior . . . While indicting a business culture of privilege and profit-minded willful blindness, the interviews also showcase thoughtful and socially engaged--if wonky--personalities . . . Relevant augury for technology's future during a tech-dependent, dysfunctional historical moment."" --Kirkus ""Eye-opening . . . This insightful account does much to illuminate an industry often shrouded in secrecy. "" --Publishers Weekly ""For decades, Silicon Valley has told its own stories on its own terms. Voices From the Valley quietly subverts these self-made mythologies, by giving tech workers--from a cafeteria contractor to a founder who failed up--a new platform to speak for themselves. Through seven straightforward, honest, insightful, anonymous accounts, readers are offered a glimpse of the business values, politics, motivations and mundanities animating one of the twenty-first century's most opaque and influential power centers. Timely and important, and an exciting new genre of tech narrative; hopefully the first of many such chronicles to come."" --Anna Wiener, author of Uncanny Valley ""Voices from the Valley is in the fine tradition of Stud Terkel's Working. People working in technology, from a founder to a cook, speak directly to us. Ever more urgent in this digital age."" --Ellen Ullman, author of Close to the Machine and Life in Code"