Your Ultimate Book Guide to Silicon Valley Tech
PayPal, Reddit, YouTube, Apple and more
Whether you view big tech as a manifestation of progress or a threat to humanity, there is little doubt that Silicon Valley tech has changed our country and lifestyle in ways unfathomable mere decades ago. I’ve developed a strong curiosity of big tech, from learning about the most iconic founders to a behind the scenes look at how startups transformed into some of the most valuable companies to ever exist, and everything in between.
This month’s book list allows you to get up close and personal with some of the most iconic companies in Silicon Valley. And now that it’s dark at 5pm you’ll have no excuses to not curl up and dive into these big reads.
The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America
By Margaret O’Mara (July 2019; Penguin Press)
The Code was one of the earliest books on Silicon Valley that I read. It’s also the broadest in scope on this list. O’Mara covers not just a single company but the development of Silicon Valley as a whole, with some of the biggest players in big tech. The book centers on how Silicon Valley became the tech engine of America (formerly it was Boston), and how it became the nexus of American hopes, dreams, and success.
The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley
By Jimmy Soni (February 2022; Simon & Schuster)
I never really thought of PayPal as a particularly interesting company, but its story is an incredible read. Soni gives a deep dive, behind the scenes, engaging portrait of how a company that started as a way to beam money between palm pilots became a massive company entwined into nearly every corner of online shopping. The success of PayPal also served as a catalyst for many other prominent tech behemoths we know and love (or loath) today, such as YouTube, LinkedIn, and SpaceX. Read my full review.
Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube's Chaotic Rise to World Domination
By Mark Bergen (September 2022; Viking)
YouTube is one of the most popular websites on the internet, behind it’s overlord Google. People not only share an enormous, unwatchable amount of content, but also use YouTube as a search engine for educational and informational content. The impact YouTube has had culturally is profound. It allowed the first influences who make a living from social media content creation to flourish, sparking a new industry. It also has a dark side of proselytizing extremism. Like, Comment, Subscribe tells the story of YouTube as a cultural revolution, with a focus on the complex relationship between the company and its creators. Read my full review.
We Are the Nerds: The Birth and Tumultuous Life of Reddit, the Internet's Culture Laboratory
By Christine Lagorio-Chafkin (October 2018; Hatchette Books)
We Are the Nerds is one of my most recommended books, and was the first of this genre I read. Reddit, also known as “the front page of the internet,” is unique in the social media space. It thrives on pseudonymity, and has a distinctive culture unmatched by any other site. I don’t use Reddit myself, but its popularity and ability to drive culture is impressive and intriguing. This book tells its story and also what makes Reddit the place it is. A profoundly interesting book for Redditers and non-users alike.
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
By John Carreyrou (May 2018; Knopf)
Remember in 2015 when news broke that the medical startup Theranos was a fraudulent company that couldn’t do a fraction of what it said it could yet swindled investors out of tens of millions of dollars? I don’t. Somehow, I completely missed this insane story but recently got up to speed by reading Bad Blood after the company came back into the news cycle earlier this year during the settling of court cases. A fascinating read from the perspective of the investigative journalist who broke the story of the biggest scam in Silicon Valley. Read my full review.
Steve Jobs
By Walter Isaacson (October 2011; Simon & Schuster)
I’m an Apple person because I like the seamless integration of devices and its easy to use interfaces. And after reading Isaacson’s biography of Apple co-founder, Steve Jobs, I learned that this was intentional from the start. Jobs was countering the hacker approach to computers that was popular at the time, especially with competitor Microsoft, and instead opted for radically different approach. Jobs created a closed system of products that work only with other Apple products and focused on design and user experience. Isaacson is a skilled biographer and this one is a must read for folks who are Apple fans. Read my full review.
Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley
By Antonio Garcia Martinez (June 2016; Harper)
I had no idea who Martinez was until he came into the news cycle last year after being hired by Apple and then promptly fired because of alleged sexist comments in his memoir that was published five years earlier. Of course I was interested and read the book. It gives a stereotypical tech-bro perspective on big tech (mostly Facebook) from a man whose public personality is being a hedonistic dick who also happens to be smart. I liked the book and found his work in advertising at Facebook insightful given that social media is essentially a giant ad machine. And, it’s a nice complement to the next book on my list.
Uncanny Valley
By Anna Wiener (January 2020; MCD)
The opposite of Martinez’s Chaos Monkeys is Wiener’s Uncanny Valley. Wiener gives the oppressed woman’s perspective of working in big tech as non-technical staff. She doesn’t exactly disclose where she works, but much of her two years working in Silicon Valley centers on her time at what I believe to be GitHub. Her book has a distinctive literary flare to the writing, and is a book that I hated at first, but then loved. It’s certainly unique and gives a countering perspective that is always appreciated.
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