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"Excellent." —San Francisco Chronicle
"Brotopia is more than a business book. Silicon Valley holds extraordinary power over our present lives as well as whatever utopia (or nightmare) might come next." —New York Times
Silicon Valley is a modern utopia where anyone can change the world. Unless you're a woman.
For women in tech, Silicon Valley is not a fantasyland of unicorns, virtual reality rainbows, and 3D-printed lollipops, where millions of dollars grow on trees. It's a "Brotopia," where men hold all the cards and make all the rules. Vastly outnumbered, women face toxic workplaces rife with discrimination and sexual harassment, where investors take meetings in hot tubs and network at sex parties.
In this powerful exposé, Bloomberg TV journalist Emily Chang reveals how Silicon Valley got so sexist despite its utopian ideals, why bro culture endures despite decades of companies claiming the moral high ground (Don't Be Evil! Connect the World!)—and how women are finally starting to speak out and fight back.
Drawing on her deep network of Silicon Valley insiders, Chang opens the boardroom doors of male-dominated venture capital firms like Kleiner Perkins, the subject of Ellen Pao's high-profile gender discrimination lawsuit, and Sequoia, where a partner once famously said they "won't lower their standards" just to hire women. Interviews with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, and former Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer—who got their start at Google, where just one in five engineers is a woman—reveal just how hard it is to crack the Silicon Ceiling. And Chang shows how women such as former Uber engineer Susan Fowler, entrepreneur Niniane Wang, and game developer Brianna Wu, have risked their careers and sometimes their lives to pave a way for other women.
Silicon Valley's aggressive, misogynistic, work-at-all costs culture has shut women out of the greatest wealth creation in the history of the world. It's time to break up the boys' club. Emily Chang shows us how to fix this toxic culture—to bring down Brotopia, once and for all.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
February 6, 2018 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
- ISBN: 9780735213548
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780735213548
- File size: 935 KB
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780735213548
- File size: 821 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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An in-depth analysis of the tech-industry brotherhood. Why aren't there more women working in Silicon Valley? According to Bloomberg TV journalist Chang, "women hold a mere quarter of computing jobs in the United States, down from 36 percent in 1991." In her first book, the author takes a deep dive into this frat-boy-like society of engineers and designers, an environment that has "become toxic for women." Beginning with a brief history of the invention of the first computers and the roles women played in developing software for them (think Hidden Figures), Chang shows how personality tests helped force women out of this burgeoning industry. "If you select for an antisocial nerd stereotype," writes the author, "you will hire more men and fewer women; that's what the research tells us." Companies flourished in this male-dominant world, and Chang describes the excessive partying that commonly takes place on the weekends at work-sponsored events. Networking sometimes takes place while sitting in hot tubs, joining in "cuddle puddles," and/or going to a strip club. The women who do manage to find positions in the industry are constantly subjected to sexual harassment and advances, made to feel inferior; many have even been threatened with rape and/or death. While conducting research, Chang interviewed countless women in the industry, including engineers, video game designers, and those who have scaled to the top--e.g., Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. The women who persevere endure these daily stresses in order to work in a field they love. As the #metoo movement accelerates, this unveiling of the sordid world behind some of the most valuable companies in the world comes as no surprise, but Chang's scrutiny breaks open a wide doorway, allowing fresh ideas about a tainted industry to circulate and spark discussions.A thorough, important examination of the often sleazy, male-dominated world of Silicon Valley.
COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. (Online Review)
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