The Valley of the Gods: A Silicon Valley Story
Written by Alexandra Wolfe
Narrated by Arden Hammersmith
4/5
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About this audiobook
Each year, young people from around the world go to Silicon Valley to hatch an idea, start a company, strike it rich, and become powerful and famous. In “a jauntily paced anthropological look at Northern California’s techtopia” (Bloomberg Businessweek), reporter and columnist for The Wall Street Journal Alexandra Wolfe follows three of these upstarts who have “stopped out” of college and real life in the hopes of becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk.
Meet the billionaires who go to training clubs for thirty-minute “body slams” designed to fit in with the start-up schedule; attend parties where people devour peanut butter-and-jelly sushi rolls; and date and seduce in a romantic culture in which thick glasses, baggy jeans, and a t-shirt is the costume of any sex symbol (and where a jacket and tie symbolize mediocrity). Through Wolfe’s eyes, we discover how they date and marry, how they dress and live, how they plot and dream, and how they have created a business world and an economic order that has made us all devotees of them.
In her blistering and hysterical examination of this new ruling class, Wolfe “offers a revealing peek inside the privilege, power, and profligacy of Silicon Valley” (Town & Country). Valley of the Gods “captures the absurdity of this brave new world, pierces the hype, but also conveys the dreams and the passions that can shape a world’s economy” (USA TODAY).
Alexandra Wolfe
Alexandra Wolfe is a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal and writes the weekly column “Weekend Confidential.” After graduating from Duke University, she worked as a staff reporter for the New York Observer, The Wall Street Journal, and then Condé Nast Portfolio. As a freelancer, she wrote regular columns for Bloomberg Businessweek, features for Travel + Leisure and Departures, and has written cover stories for Vanity Fair and Town & Country. The Valley of the Gods is her first book. She lives in New York City.
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Reviews for The Valley of the Gods
29 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A dive into the silicon Valley mindset lead by Thiel and other well known techies. And indeed they are reaching some point of success to be questioning life, god and conventional assumptions. Time will tell where this will lead.