Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley
3.5/5
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About this ebook
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
An NPR Best Book of the Year
“Incisive.... The most fun business book I have read this year.... Clearly there will be people who hate this book — which is probably one of the things that makes it such a great read.”
— Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times
“Eye-popping.”
— Vanity Fair
Liar’s Poker meets The Social Network in an irreverent exposé of life inside the tech bubble, from industry provocateur Antonio García Martínez, a former Twitter advisor, Facebook product manager and startup founder/CEO.
The reality is, Silicon Valley capitalism is very simple:
Investors are people with more money than time.
Employees are people with more time than money.
Entrepreneurs are the seductive go-between.
Marketing is like sex: only losers pay for it.
Imagine a chimpanzee rampaging through a datacenter powering everything from Google to Facebook. Infrastructure engineers use a software version of this “chaos monkey” to test online services’ robustness—their ability to survive random failure and correct mistakes before they actually occur. Tech entrepreneurs are society’s chaos monkeys, disruptors testing and transforming every aspect of our lives, from transportation (Uber) and lodging (AirBnB) to television (Netflix) and dating (Tinder). One of Silicon Valley’s most audacious chaos monkeys is Antonio García Martínez.
After stints on Wall Street and as CEO of his own startup, García Martínez joined Facebook’s nascent advertising team, turning its users’ data into profit for COO Sheryl Sandberg and chairman and CEO Mark “Zuck” Zuckerberg. Forced out in the wake of an internal product war over the future of the company’s monetization strategy, García Martínez eventually landed at rival Twitter. He also fathered two children with a woman he barely knew, committed lewd acts and brewed illegal beer on the Facebook campus (accidentally flooding Zuckerberg's desk), lived on a sailboat, raced sport cars on the 101, and enthusiastically pursued the life of an overpaid Silicon Valley wastrel.
Now, this gleeful contrarian unravels the chaotic evolution of social media and online marketing and reveals how it is invading our lives and shaping our future. Weighing in on everything from startups and credit derivatives to Big Brother and data tracking, social media monetization and digital “privacy,” García Martínez shares his scathing observations and outrageous antics, taking us on a humorous, subversive tour of the fascinatingly insular tech industry. Chaos Monkeys lays bare the hijinks, trade secrets, and power plays of the visionaries, grunts, sociopaths, opportunists, accidental tourists, and money cowboys who are revolutionizing our world. The question is, will we survive?
Editor's Note
An insider’s hilarious account…
Take a look at how Silicon Valley culture has run amok. What are all the wealthy people doing inside the tech bubble, and if they’re getting away with all that, what could possibly make it burst? Martinez relates his personal antics as a former Facebook and Twitter employee with cutting humor to paint a damning picture of unchecked privilege.
Antonio Garcia Martinez
Antonio García Martínez has been an advisor to Twitter, a product manager for Facebook, the CEO/founder of AdGrok (a venture-backed startup acquired by Twitter), and a strategist for Goldman Sachs. He is an Ideas Contributor for WIRED and lives on a forty-foot sailboat on the San Francisco Bay.
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Reviews for Chaos Monkeys
128 ratings7 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A book about some interesting career choices. Martinez started off at Goldman Sachs on the East Coast. He moved West and worked in Silicon Valley. Most of the drama in his book centered around his efforts with two other men to start up a software business. He offered some interesting anecdotes about various venture capitalists and investors including Chris Sacca. it was a long book – – I skipped around sections that did not interest me. Martinez's personal life was a bit interesting – – he had two children with a woman nicknamed BritishTrader. He also offered some interesting insights into his stint at Facebook – – especially as it relates to its culture.
I've read a couple books on working in Silicon Valley. My personality and energies would never fit in with a Silicon Valley business--- sounds like working within a slave camp. I also would never have had the balls to try to start a business and beg for money. I give Martinez a lot of credit for how he pulled off starting his company.
I agree with some reviewers who thought the book could have been shorter and more condensed. Like I said, I skipped a lot of the book. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Edge of my seat the whole time! life changing experience. To get a handle of how the front running tech has/is shaping our modern world feels like a rollercoaster. I had no idea. just when you think its over and done with, the ride takes another turn. Im inspired and equally awed, and feel for Antonio.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Iwant to be one of the most members of the pnp
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Good tech insight from a cultivated writer; enjoyed his writing style that incorporated a lot of non-tech references
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Good book too facebook focussed and less on the valley ecosystem.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5R rated, but very readable.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A well-written book by a player, not just an observer. It is a real-world equivalent of the TV comedic mockumentary, "Silicon Valley" . There are a few tinges of self-aggrandisement, but this does not detract from a compelling and timely story well told.