-
Live Work Work Work Die
- A Journey into the Savage Heart of Silicon Valley
- Narrated by: Corey Pein
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $20.24
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
A scathing, sardonic exploration of Silicon Valley tech culture, laying bare the greed, hubris, and retrograde politics of an industry that aspires to radically transform society for its own benefit. This enlightening audiobook is a must-listen for anyone interested or involved in the tech industry.
At the height of the start-up boom, journalist Corey Pein set out for Silicon Valley with little more than a smartphone and his wits. His goal: to learn how such an overhyped industry could possibly sustain itself as long as it has. Determined to cut through the clichés of big tech - the relentless optimism, the mandatory enthusiasm, and the earnest, incessant repetition of vacuous buzzwords - Pein decided that he would need to take an approach as unorthodox as the companies he would soon be covering. To truly understand the delirious reality of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, he knew, he would have to inhabit that perspective - he would have to become an entrepreneur.
Thus he begins his journey - skulking through gimmicky tech conferences, pitching his over-the-top business ideas to investors, and interviewing a cast of outrageous characters: cyborgs and con artists, Teamsters and transhumanists, jittery hackers and naive upstart programmers whose entire lives are managed by their employers - who work endlessly and obediently, never thinking to question their place in the system.
In showing us this frantic world, Pein challenges the positive, feel-good self-image that the tech tycoons have crafted - as nerdy and benevolent creators of wealth and opportunity - revealing their self-justifying views and their insidious visions for the future. Indeed, as Pein shows, Silicon Valley is awash in disreputable ideas: Google executive and futurist Raymond Kurzweil has a side business peddling dietary supplements and has for years pushed the outlandish notion that human beings are destined to merge with computers and live forever in some kind of digital cosmic hive mind. Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist affiliated with PayPal and Facebook, is now an important advisor to President Trump and has subsidized a prolific blogger known by the pen name Mencius Moldbug who writes approvingly of ideas like eugenics and dictatorship. And Moldbug is not alone. There is, in fact, a small but influential - and growing - group of techies with similarly absurd and extremist beliefs who call themselves the "neoreactionary" vanguard of a "Dark Enlightenment."
Vivid and incisive, Live Work Work Work Die is a troubling portrait of a self-obsessed industry bent on imposing its disturbing visions on the rest of us.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Chaos Monkeys - Revised Edition
- Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley
- By: Antonio Garcia Martinez
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 16 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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. 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. In Chaos Monkeys, 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.
-
-
Best Non-fiction (and entertaining frolic) I’ve listened to in years!
- By Martha Mangan on 09-22-19
-
Disrupted
- My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble
- By: Dan Lyons
- Narrated by: Dan Lyons
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An instant New York Times best seller, Dan Lyons' "hysterical" (Recode) memoir, hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "the best book about Silicon Valley," takes listeners inside the maddening world of fad-chasing venture capitalists, sales bros, social climbers, and sociopaths at today's tech startups. For 25 years Dan Lyons was a magazine writer at the top of his profession - until one Friday morning when he received a phone call: Poof. His job no longer existed. "I think they just want to hire younger people," his boss at Newsweek told him.
-
-
Don't drink the Kool Aid
- By Margaret on 07-03-16
By: Dan Lyons
-
Lab Rats
- How Silicon Valley Made Work Miserable for the Rest of Us
- By: Dan Lyons
- Narrated by: Dan Lyons
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author Dan Lyons exposes how the "new oligarchs" of Silicon Valley have turned technology into a tool for oppressing workers in this "passionate" (Kirkus) and "darkly funny" (Publishers Weekly) examination of workplace culture.
-
-
Loved “Disrupted”, and this starts strong, but…
- By William J Brown on 10-27-18
By: Dan Lyons
-
Same as Ever
- A Guide to What Never Changes
- By: Morgan Housel
- Narrated by: Chris Hill
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every investment plan under the sun is, at best, an informed speculation of what may happen in the future, based on a systematic extrapolation from the known past. Same as Ever reverses the process, inviting us to identify the many things that never, ever change. With his usual elan, Morgan Housel presents a master class on optimizing risk, seizing opportunity, and living your best life. Through a sequence of engaging stories and pithy examples, he shows how we can use our newfound grasp of the unchanging to see around corners.
-
-
Beautifully Succinct Summary of Others Original Ideas
- By Mitch on 11-09-23
By: Morgan Housel
-
Going Infinite
- The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side?
-
-
really expected more rigor from Michael Lewis
- By Wowhello on 10-04-23
By: Michael Lewis
-
Super Pumped
- The Battle for Uber
- By: Mike Isaac
- Narrated by: Holter Graham, Mike Isaac
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A New York Times technology correspondent presents the dramatic rise and fall of Uber, set against the rapid upheaval in Silicon Valley during the mobile era. Based on hundreds of interviews with current and former Uber employees, along with previously unpublished documents, Super Pumped is a pause-resisting story of ambition and deception, obscene wealth, and bad behavior, that explores how blistering technological and financial innovation culminated in one of the most catastrophic 12-month periods in American corporate history.
-
-
A forced narrative and a bad version of Bad Blood
- By Benji on 09-09-19
By: Mike Isaac
-
Chaos Monkeys - Revised Edition
- Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley
- By: Antonio Garcia Martinez
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 16 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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. 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. In Chaos Monkeys, 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.
-
-
Best Non-fiction (and entertaining frolic) I’ve listened to in years!
- By Martha Mangan on 09-22-19
-
Disrupted
- My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble
- By: Dan Lyons
- Narrated by: Dan Lyons
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An instant New York Times best seller, Dan Lyons' "hysterical" (Recode) memoir, hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "the best book about Silicon Valley," takes listeners inside the maddening world of fad-chasing venture capitalists, sales bros, social climbers, and sociopaths at today's tech startups. For 25 years Dan Lyons was a magazine writer at the top of his profession - until one Friday morning when he received a phone call: Poof. His job no longer existed. "I think they just want to hire younger people," his boss at Newsweek told him.
-
-
Don't drink the Kool Aid
- By Margaret on 07-03-16
By: Dan Lyons
-
Lab Rats
- How Silicon Valley Made Work Miserable for the Rest of Us
- By: Dan Lyons
- Narrated by: Dan Lyons
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author Dan Lyons exposes how the "new oligarchs" of Silicon Valley have turned technology into a tool for oppressing workers in this "passionate" (Kirkus) and "darkly funny" (Publishers Weekly) examination of workplace culture.
-
-
Loved “Disrupted”, and this starts strong, but…
- By William J Brown on 10-27-18
By: Dan Lyons
-
Same as Ever
- A Guide to What Never Changes
- By: Morgan Housel
- Narrated by: Chris Hill
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every investment plan under the sun is, at best, an informed speculation of what may happen in the future, based on a systematic extrapolation from the known past. Same as Ever reverses the process, inviting us to identify the many things that never, ever change. With his usual elan, Morgan Housel presents a master class on optimizing risk, seizing opportunity, and living your best life. Through a sequence of engaging stories and pithy examples, he shows how we can use our newfound grasp of the unchanging to see around corners.
-
-
Beautifully Succinct Summary of Others Original Ideas
- By Mitch on 11-09-23
By: Morgan Housel
-
Going Infinite
- The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side?
-
-
really expected more rigor from Michael Lewis
- By Wowhello on 10-04-23
By: Michael Lewis
-
Super Pumped
- The Battle for Uber
- By: Mike Isaac
- Narrated by: Holter Graham, Mike Isaac
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A New York Times technology correspondent presents the dramatic rise and fall of Uber, set against the rapid upheaval in Silicon Valley during the mobile era. Based on hundreds of interviews with current and former Uber employees, along with previously unpublished documents, Super Pumped is a pause-resisting story of ambition and deception, obscene wealth, and bad behavior, that explores how blistering technological and financial innovation culminated in one of the most catastrophic 12-month periods in American corporate history.
-
-
A forced narrative and a bad version of Bad Blood
- By Benji on 09-09-19
By: Mike Isaac
-
The Pragmatic Programmer: 20th Anniversary Edition, 2nd Edition
- Your Journey to Mastery
- By: David Thomas, Andrew Hunt
- Narrated by: Anna Katarina
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt wrote the first edition of this influential book in 1999 to help their clients create better software and rediscover the joy of coding. These lessons have helped a generation of programmers examine the very essence of software development. Now, 20 years later, this new edition re-examines what it means to be a modern programmer. Topics range from personal responsibility and career development to architectural techniques for keeping your code flexible and easy to adapt and reuse.
-
-
An excellent and entertaining technical book
- By Amazon Customer on 01-21-20
By: David Thomas, and others
-
Range
- Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
- By: David Epstein
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Plenty of experts argue that anyone who wants to develop a skill, play an instrument, or lead their field should start early, focus intensely, and rack up as many hours of deliberate practice as possible. But a closer look at research on the world’s top performers shows that early specialization is the exception, not the rule. David Epstein examined the world’s most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors, forecasters and scientists. He discovered that in most fields—especially those that are complex and unpredictable—generalists, not specialists, are primed to excel.
-
-
If you're highly curious, read this
- By anon. on 06-07-19
By: David Epstein
-
Debt - Updated and Expanded
- The First 5,000 Years
- By: David Graeber
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here, anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: He shows that before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods - that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.
-
-
Transformative to the point of being revolutionary
- By James C. Samans on 08-14-16
By: David Graeber
-
The Utopia of Rules
- On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy
- By: David Graeber
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anthropologist David Graeber - one of our most important and provocative thinkers - traces the peculiar and unexpected ways we relate to bureaucracy today and reveals how it shapes our lives in ways we may not even notice...though he also suggests there may be something perversely appealing - even romantic - about bureaucracy.
-
-
Not his most serious book, but still really great
- By David Pereplyotchik on 11-19-19
By: David Graeber
-
Collapse
- How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
- By: Jared Diamond
- Narrated by: Christopher Murney
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In his million-copy best seller Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond examined how and why Western civilizations developed the technologies and immunities that allowed them to dominate much of the world. Now in this brilliant companion volume, Diamond probes the other side of the equation: what caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates?
-
-
an fascinating book, but better on paper
- By Rebecca on 04-11-05
By: Jared Diamond
-
Why Startups Fail
- A New Roadmap for Entrepreneurial Success
- By: Tom Eisenmann
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it. So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures.
-
-
Shades of gray between startup failure and success
- By Greg Fisher on 04-04-21
By: Tom Eisenmann
-
Fooled by Randomness
- The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
- By: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This audiobook is about luck, or more precisely, how we perceive and deal with luck in life and business. It is already a landmark work, and its title has entered our vocabulary. In its second edition, Fooled by Randomness is now a cornerstone for anyone interested in random outcomes.
-
-
Pass on this one and read The Black Swan
- By Wade T. Brooks on 06-25-12
-
The Smartest Guys in the Room
- The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron
- By: Bethany McLean
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 22 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The definitive volume on Enron's amazing rise and scandalous fall, from an award-winning team of Fortune investigative reporters.
-
-
An excellent book, but with a missing chapter
- By Augustus T. White on 03-07-12
By: Bethany McLean
-
The Ministry for the Future
- A Novel
- By: Kim Stanley Robinson
- Narrated by: Jennifer Fitzgerald, Fajer Al-Kaisi, Ramon de Ocampo, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us - and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face.
-
-
Great ideas, uneven narration
- By depthpsychologist on 12-09-20
-
Wizard
- The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla: Biography of a Genius
- By: Marc J. Seifer
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 22 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), credited as the inspiration for radio, robots, and even radar, has been called the patron saint of modern electricity. Based on original material and previously unavailable documents, this acclaimed book is the definitive biography of the man considered by many to be the founding father of modern electrical technology.
-
-
Tesla was a hundred years ahead of his time
- By Jean on 01-28-12
By: Marc J. Seifer
-
The Price of Tomorrow
- Why Deflation Is the Key to an Abundant Future
- By: Jeff Booth
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We live in an extraordinary time. Technological advances are happening at a rate faster than our ability to understand them, and in a world that moves faster than we can imagine, we cannot afford to stand still. These advances bring efficiency and abundance - and they are profoundly deflationary. Our economic systems were built for a pre-technology era when labor and capital were inextricably linked - an era that counted on growth and inflation and an era where we made money from inefficiency.
-
-
I've got this on constant repeat, 3 times already
- By Tim Kennedy on 05-20-20
By: Jeff Booth
-
In the Plex
- How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives
- By: Steven Levy
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 19 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Few companies in history have ever been as successful and as admired as Google, the company that has transformed the Internet and become an indispensable part of our lives. How has Google done it? Veteran technology reporter Steven Levy was granted unprecedented access to the company, and in this revelatory book he takes listeners inside Google headquarters - the Googleplex - to explain how Google works.
-
-
Just ok for me
- By Everyday Mom on 04-23-11
By: Steven Levy
Related to this topic
-
You Only Have to Be Right Once
- The Unprecedented Rise of the Instant Tech Billionaires
- By: Randall Lane
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the last three years, Forbes has published in depth profiles of this new batch of billionaires, including the founders of Spotify, Dropbox, Tumblr, and Twitter. Now, in a compilation introduced and updated by Forbes editor Randall Lane, fans and critics alike will get a comprehensive look at who these super-entrepreneurs are and what they say about their own success and their plans for the future.
-
-
Awesome book!
- By Jamal Love on 06-17-15
By: Randall Lane
-
Googled
- The End of the World as We Know It
- By: Ken Auletta
- Narrated by: Jim Bond
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Googled, esteemed media writer and critic Ken Auletta uses the story of Google's rise to explore the inner workings of the company and the future of the media at large. Although Google has often been secretive, this book is based on the most extensive cooperation ever granted a journalist, including access to closed-door meetings and interviews with founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, CEO Eric Schmidt, and some 150 present and former employees.
-
-
Audio production could have been better
- By David on 11-12-09
By: Ken Auletta
-
Alibaba's World
- How a Remarkable Chinese Company Is Changing the Face of Global Business
- By: Porter Erisman
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In September 2014, a Chinese company that most Americans had never heard of held the largest IPO in history - bigger than Google, Facebook, and Twitter combined. Alibaba, now the world's largest ecommerce company, mostly escaped Western notice for over 10 years, while building a customer base larger than Amazon's and handling the bulk of ecommerce transactions in China. How did it happen? And what was it like to be along for such a revolutionary ride?
-
-
Not bad
- By Daniel on 09-12-15
By: Porter Erisman
-
Frenemies
- The Epic Disruption of the Ad Business (And Everything Else)
- By: Ken Auletta
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An intimate and profound reckoning with the changes buffeting the $2 trillion global advertising and marketing business from the perspective of its most powerful players, by the best-selling author of Googled. Advertising and marketing touches on every corner of our lives, and is the invisible fuel powering almost all media. Complain about it though we might, without it the world would be a darker place. And of all the industries wracked by change in the digital age, few have been turned on its head as dramatically as this one has.
-
-
Good; not for beginners
- By DV on 10-05-18
By: Ken Auletta
-
Alibaba
- The House That Jack Ma Built
- By: Duncan Clark
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In just a decade and a half, Jack Ma, a man from modest beginnings who started out as an English teacher, founded Alibaba and built it into one of the world's largest companies, an e-commerce empire on which hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers depend. Alibaba's $25 billion IPO in 2014 was the largest global IPO ever. A Rockefeller of his age who is courted by CEOs and presidents around the world, Jack is an icon for China's booming private sector.
-
-
Strange: Best part of story happens "off-screen"
- By Tristan on 09-02-16
By: Duncan Clark
-
No Better Time
- The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet
- By: Molly Knight Raskin
- Narrated by: Christine Marshall
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No Better Time tells of a young, driven mathematical genius who wrote a set of algorithms that would create a faster, better Internet. It's the story of a beautiful friendship between a loud, irreverent student and his soft-spoken MIT professor, of a husband and father who spent years struggling to make ends meet only to become a billionaire almost overnight with the success of Akamai Technologies, the Internet content delivery network he cofounded with his mentor.
-
-
An Overlooked Hero of 9-11
- By Jean on 05-27-16
-
You Only Have to Be Right Once
- The Unprecedented Rise of the Instant Tech Billionaires
- By: Randall Lane
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the last three years, Forbes has published in depth profiles of this new batch of billionaires, including the founders of Spotify, Dropbox, Tumblr, and Twitter. Now, in a compilation introduced and updated by Forbes editor Randall Lane, fans and critics alike will get a comprehensive look at who these super-entrepreneurs are and what they say about their own success and their plans for the future.
-
-
Awesome book!
- By Jamal Love on 06-17-15
By: Randall Lane
-
Googled
- The End of the World as We Know It
- By: Ken Auletta
- Narrated by: Jim Bond
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Googled, esteemed media writer and critic Ken Auletta uses the story of Google's rise to explore the inner workings of the company and the future of the media at large. Although Google has often been secretive, this book is based on the most extensive cooperation ever granted a journalist, including access to closed-door meetings and interviews with founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, CEO Eric Schmidt, and some 150 present and former employees.
-
-
Audio production could have been better
- By David on 11-12-09
By: Ken Auletta
-
Alibaba's World
- How a Remarkable Chinese Company Is Changing the Face of Global Business
- By: Porter Erisman
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In September 2014, a Chinese company that most Americans had never heard of held the largest IPO in history - bigger than Google, Facebook, and Twitter combined. Alibaba, now the world's largest ecommerce company, mostly escaped Western notice for over 10 years, while building a customer base larger than Amazon's and handling the bulk of ecommerce transactions in China. How did it happen? And what was it like to be along for such a revolutionary ride?
-
-
Not bad
- By Daniel on 09-12-15
By: Porter Erisman
-
Frenemies
- The Epic Disruption of the Ad Business (And Everything Else)
- By: Ken Auletta
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An intimate and profound reckoning with the changes buffeting the $2 trillion global advertising and marketing business from the perspective of its most powerful players, by the best-selling author of Googled. Advertising and marketing touches on every corner of our lives, and is the invisible fuel powering almost all media. Complain about it though we might, without it the world would be a darker place. And of all the industries wracked by change in the digital age, few have been turned on its head as dramatically as this one has.
-
-
Good; not for beginners
- By DV on 10-05-18
By: Ken Auletta
-
Alibaba
- The House That Jack Ma Built
- By: Duncan Clark
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In just a decade and a half, Jack Ma, a man from modest beginnings who started out as an English teacher, founded Alibaba and built it into one of the world's largest companies, an e-commerce empire on which hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers depend. Alibaba's $25 billion IPO in 2014 was the largest global IPO ever. A Rockefeller of his age who is courted by CEOs and presidents around the world, Jack is an icon for China's booming private sector.
-
-
Strange: Best part of story happens "off-screen"
- By Tristan on 09-02-16
By: Duncan Clark
-
No Better Time
- The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet
- By: Molly Knight Raskin
- Narrated by: Christine Marshall
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No Better Time tells of a young, driven mathematical genius who wrote a set of algorithms that would create a faster, better Internet. It's the story of a beautiful friendship between a loud, irreverent student and his soft-spoken MIT professor, of a husband and father who spent years struggling to make ends meet only to become a billionaire almost overnight with the success of Akamai Technologies, the Internet content delivery network he cofounded with his mentor.
-
-
An Overlooked Hero of 9-11
- By Jean on 05-27-16
-
The Zeroes
- My Misadventures in the Decade Wall Street Went Insane
- By: Randall Lane
- Narrated by: Randall Lane
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Magazine entrepreneur Randall Lane had a prime seat at Wall Street's biggest greed fest. The Zeroes is a memoir about the excesses and bad behavior of an outsider who got pulled into a crazy, self-contained world.
-
-
A very entertaining tale
- By andy on 11-03-13
By: Randall Lane
-
What Would Google Do?
- By: Jeff Jarvis
- Narrated by: Jeff Jarvis
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a book that's one part prophecy, one part thought experiment, one part manifesto, and one part survival manual, internet impresario and blogging pioneer Jeff Jarvis reverse-engineers Google, the fastest-growing company in history, to discover 40 clear and straightforward rules to manage and live by.
-
-
Shallow and one-sided
- By JimmiJ on 02-04-09
By: Jeff Jarvis
-
Ahead of the Curve
- Two Years at Harvard Business School
- By: Philip Delves Broughton
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2004 Philip Delves Broughton abandoned a post as Paris bureau chief of the London Daily Telegraph to join 900 other would-be tycoons on the Harvard Business School's plush campus. With acute and often uproarious candor, he assesses the school's success at teaching the traits it extols as most important in business: leadership, decisiveness, ethical behavior, and work/life balance.
-
-
On one breath.
- By Atkins on 05-17-22
-
The World Is Flat
- Further Updated and Expanded
- By: Thomas L. Friedman
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 27 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, what will they say was the most crucial development in the first few years of the twenty-first century? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations?
-
-
If you like cliches...
- By Jonathan Shultz on 09-08-07
-
The Starfish and the Spider
- The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
- By: Ori Brafman, Rod Beckstrom
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you cut off a spider's leg, it's crippled; if you cut off its head, it dies. But if you cut off a starfish's leg it grows a new one, and the old leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. The Starfish and the Spider argues that organizations fall into two categories: "spiders", which have a rigid hierarchy, and "starfish", which rely on the power of peer relationships.
-
-
Centralized and decentralized models
- By Chan Meng on 12-07-07
By: Ori Brafman, and others
-
All the Rave
- The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning’s Napster
- By: Joseph Menn
- Narrated by: John Rubinstein
- Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The definitive inside account of the file-sharing revolution that overthrew the music industry, All the Rave reveals the family betrayal, greed, and mismanagement that hijacked one the most fundamental innovations of the Internet era. Named one of the three best books of 2003 by Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc., All the Rave has been out of print until now and unavailable in most formats. Author and veteran technology journalist Joseph Menn also wrote 2010's Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords who are Bringing Down the Internet.
-
-
The Far-reaching Karma of Napster
- By Susie on 04-29-13
By: Joseph Menn
-
Losing the Signal
- The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry
- By: Jacquie McNish, Sean Silcoff
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Losing the Signal is a riveting story of a company that toppled global giants before succumbing to the ruthlessly competitive forces of Silicon Valley. This is not a conventional tale of modern business failure by fraud and greed. The rise and fall of BlackBerry reveals the dangerous speed at which innovators race along the information superhighway.
-
-
Fascinating
- By Gerardo A Dada on 09-05-15
By: Jacquie McNish, and others
-
Age of Ambition
- Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
- By: Evan Osnos
- Narrated by: Evan Osnos, George Backman
- Length: 16 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval. In Age of Ambition, he describes the greatest collision taking place in that country: the clash between the rise of the individual and the Communist Party’s struggle to retain control.
-
-
Come back when you have a warrant!
- By Neuron on 11-06-15
By: Evan Osnos
-
The Filter Bubble
- What the Internet Is Hiding from You
- By: Eli Pariser
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In December 2009, Google began customizing its search results for each user. Instead of giving you the most broadly popular result, Google now tries to predict what you are most likely to click on. According to MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser, Google's change in policy is symptomatic of the most significant shift to take place on the Web in recent years: the rise of personalization.
-
-
Now in the top 3 best books I've ever read
- By Brian Esserlieu on 05-26-11
By: Eli Pariser
-
World Without Mind
- The Existential Threat of Big Tech
- By: Franklin Foer
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Franklin Foer reveals the existential threat posed by big tech, and in his brilliant polemic gives us the toolkit to fight their pervasive influence. Over the past few decades there has been a revolution in terms of who controls knowledge and information. This rapid change has imperiled the way we think. Without pausing to consider the cost, the world has rushed to embrace the products and services of four titanic corporations. We shop with Amazon, socialize on Facebook, turn to Apple for entertainment, and rely on Google for information.
-
-
5-Star Book with a 1-Star Title
- By David Larson on 09-18-17
By: Franklin Foer
-
Startup Rising
- The Entrepreneurial Revolution Remaking the Middle East
- By: Christopher M. Schroeder
- Narrated by: Christopher M. Schroeder
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Despite the world's elation at the Arab Spring, shockingly little has changed politically in the Middle East; even frontliners Egypt and Tunisia continue to suffer repression, fixed elections, and bombings, while Syria descends into civil war. But in the midst of it all, a quieter revolution has begun to emerge, one that might ultimately do more to change the face of the region: Entrepreneurship.
-
-
Inspiring stories
- By Raafat Zaini on 02-13-15
-
Broad Band
- The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet
- By: Claire L. Evans
- Narrated by: Claire L. Evans
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Women are not ancillary to the history of technology; they turn up at the very beginning of every important wave. But they've often been hidden in plain sight, their inventions and contributions touching our lives in ways we don't even realize. Vice reporter and YACHT lead singer Claire L. Evans finally gives these unsung female heroes their due with her insightful social history of the Broad Band, the women who made the Internet what it is today. Evans shows us how these women built and colored the technologies we can't imagine life without.
-
-
Inspiring
- By Jean on 03-29-18
By: Claire L. Evans
What listeners say about Live Work Work Work Die
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- dylan
- 02-22-19
monotone reader, biased reporting
The first four hours are fine. The last half reads like a political article on a left leaning news organization. The guy is also the most monotone reader I've heard yet.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Alan
- 05-01-18
Compelling (and occasionally tedious) critique
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
Corey Pein's story of moving to Silicon Valley to seek a fortune and the indignities of trying to live in an absurdly overpriced city were great. His critique of the predatory side of the startup ecosystem was also great. He does a great job pointing out the self-serving legends that Silicon Valley has made for itself (and that many of us used to believe).
But when the book veered away from the authors personal experience and into his general ideas about politics, I really lost interest. Unfortunately, too much of the book was taken up by political rants and "calling out" right-wingers in Silicon Valley. As much as I liked the central story, I can't recommend the entire book to anyone unless they really want to listen to a recitation of marxist bathroom graffiti for a few hours.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ines
- 08-28-18
Necessary reading
Do not take into account the overall rating of this book - it's the product a volley of undeserved criticisms. I am inclined to blame this on cognitive dissonance and technological fanaticism.
In a world increasingly dominated by "techies" and where the dominant narrative revolves around how they will save the world from calamity, this book offers a refreshing escape. The author is a talented writer (and narrator) and experienced first hand some of the least explored and least spoken about aspects of the rapidly growing behemoth that is Silicon Valley. Pein sheds light on a number of negative consequences of techno-corporate power, consequences that are -for reasons that are all the more obvious after listening to this book- brushed aside, ignored or outright censored by ridiculing those who point them out. We need critical voices that... "disrupt" the optimistic, non-critical and quasi-religious belief in the infallibility and superiority of technocrats.
I'm quite glad I gave this book a chance. Everyone should.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lydia
- 10-24-18
Yikes!
Terrifying and terrifically timely.
I think that Corey and I would be pals IRL.
It is a tiny comfort to know that at least one other person has been gaping, comparably aghast, at the surreal travesty unfolding around us. Dystopia ho!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- James
- 04-26-18
The bucket of cold water Silicon Valley needs
Would you listen to Live Work Work Work Die again? Why?
Maybe, but it's pretty grim.
What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?
I like the travelogue structure of the book. Also, Pine's humor helps things from getting too depressing.
Which scene was your favorite?
I liked the description of his first AirBnB as his first real introduction to the way life is in this sector of the economy.
What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?
Peter Thiel is even creepier than I thought. Like way more sinister.
Any additional comments?
I loved the first three chapters, but later the structure sort of broke down and the narrative lost its flow. The mini biographies came to overpower the nice travelogue structure of the first part. Even so, the book more than held my attention.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Nikita Malov
- 05-22-20
Deep dive into a mind of a conspiracy theories fan
Loved the description of personal experience of Silicon Valley life and overall startup culture with disappointing behavior of VCs, overhyped techies not allowed to show any sign of exhaustion and not-exactly-law-abiding tech companies on their way to growth and competition.
But the last third or so of the book ruined it to me, as the author apparently decided to grab some of the hype himself and after found a handful of egalitarian representatives of tech industry decided to extrapolate it on the whole field and increase the degree by calling them and all alike or however connected to them Nazis. Just brilliant example of an outrageously poor "journalism", I beg for forgiveness actual journalists reading this for using the word towards this.
If not the actually interesting first half of the book this thing wouldn't be worth even finishing, let alone a review.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Austin Pierce
- 10-24-18
“What’s awful here?”
This book is the most cynical thing I’ve ever read. That’s not to say that its facts are inaccurate. Rather, it’s to say that it is as if the author looked at people, situations, and companies with the question “What’s awful here?“
It is a valid counterpoint to the dominant narrative. But it is not a balanced and holistic view. There is no time for any good in this book. That is not it’s purpose.
It seems that the only reason he’d mention a ray of sunshine is because there’s a hole in the ozone layer.
It’s a true story, but not a whole story.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tim H
- 10-23-18
Riveting, brutal, and darkly hilarious at times.
Considering tech companies' level of power and influence in the world and in our lives, there is a considerable lack of scrutiny regarding their aspirations, the way they operate, and their general ethical values (or lack thereof). Individual convenience through technological progression oftentimes comes at the expense of the environment, our privacy, and the overall wellbeing of humanity--as the further commodification of cheap human labor is the oil on which many of these companies run on. There is a criminal disregard for the price we py for convenience, and it's largely minimized or flatly ignored by the media (spoiler: there's a reason for this), and the sheer pace and distractive nature of these innovations prevent us from taking a step back and really examining their implications. With hundreds of billions of dollars at their disposal and world class lobbyists on their side, the reception of the media and of governments has largely been enthusiastic approval to push forward unrestricted and at an ever accelerating pace. "Disruption", the buzzword that so much of the industry strives for and worships, is often a simple sugarcoating for unfettered capitalism.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Djene Rhys Bajalan
- 07-26-19
Depressing Good
really enjoyable romp through the valley. it ended on a depressing note regarding the future. Jeepers tech capitalism is grim.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Matt Lech
- 05-19-18
If you're in tech and haven't read this book...
you're probably a sucker. Pein's work is indispensable for a world finally ready to see Silicon Valley for what it is.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful