Silicon States: The Power and Politics of Big Tech and What It Means for Our Future

by Lucie Greene Narrated by Esther Wane

Overview

Welcome to the Silicon States.



Silicon Valley is imperializing the planet. With nearly bottomless supplies of cash and ambition, a small group of companies have been gradually seizing symbolic and practical civic leadership in America and worldwide. But Silicon Valley does not answer to the electorate; nor have they been voted into office. And the perils of their influence are only now making themselves known. The institutions of Facebook, Google, and Twitter are implicated in the investigation of Russian interference into U.S. elections, providing the public their first opportunity to glimpse the wizards behind the curtain: how these businesses operate, where their interests lie, and the power they wield over an unsuspecting citizenry.



While the promise of Silicon Valley is bold, futuristic, and seductive, it is important to understand these corporations' possible impact on our future. Silicon States emphasizes that before we hand our future over to a rarified group of companies, we examine the world they might build: its benefits, prejudices, and inherent flaws. And to ask, ultimately, if we really want it.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

06/04/2018
In this ominous but shallowly argued volume, Greene, a director at the advertising giant J. Walter Thompson’s Innovation Group, declares that the rapid growth of Silicon Valley—represented by a cluster of digital technology firms including Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Snapchat, and Tesla—has far-reaching consequences for society. Valley companies’ increasing power and ambition to “disrupt,” she writes, threaten to erode the foundations of democratic governance, put in place a global surveillance regime, and cede power over society to a group of privileged white men who “don’t like paying taxes.” Unfortunately, Greene is hard pressed to make sense of the complexities of big tech. In chapters about Silicon Valley’s impact on government, media, education, healthcare, and other sectors, she combines insufficiently rigorous analysis with a plodding, repetitive style that circles back to the same rhetorical devices in chapter after chapter (“Where creativity, concepts, and culture could be innovative before, somehow technology and data have become the primary things associated with the future”). Moreover, the book portrays the region’s encroachment on national sovereignty as unprecedented, but fails to acknowledge that older brands such as Ford, General Motors, IBM, and Pepsi were political entities long before Silicon Valley’s time. Greene also attempts to shoehorn a year’s worth of headlines into her analysis, touching on #MeToo and Trump-era populism before laying the blame for political breakdown at the feet of millennials too busy “growing mustaches” to vote. The result is a provocative yet often unreadable account. (Aug.)

From the Publisher

Praise for Silicon States

A Best Book of the Year So Far (Esquire)
A Book on Social Impact Every CMO Should Read (Forbes)
A Must–Read Book About Tech and Startup Culture (Book Riot)
One of the Most Compelling Books of the Year (Manorama Online)
One of the Books You Need to Read Next (Women.com)
Winner of the 800–CEO–READ Business Book Award in Current Events and Public Affairs

“Via candid interviews with corporate leaders, influential venture capitalists, scholars, journalists, activists, [Greene] explores exactly what’s at stake if we continue to let the largely unregulated Big Tech determine our futures.” —Esquire, One of the Best Books of 2018 (So Far)

“In this entertaining and expertly researched book, renowned futurist and celebrated international think–tank leader Lucie Greene . . . peels back the layers to show us what lies beneath the glossy sheen of technotopia.” —Forbes, 1 of 12 Books on Social Impact Every CMO Should Read

“From perusing Airbnb rentals to reflexively summoning a Lyft, we all take tech’s ubiquity and power for granted. In this book, Lucie Greene describes how Silicon Valley’s spider web of networks has infiltrated all aspects of living. She posits that Silicon Valley is more brand than location, offering insightful prognostications on how technology will continue to shape the everyday. Since flipping the last page of Silicon States, I’ve become more aware of the need to ensure that I own my tech without it owning me.” —Rhett Power, Forbes, One of the Best New Books on Silicon Valley

“A timely examination of big tech’s outsize cultural and political clout.” —Stephen Phillips, San Francisco Chronicle

“Silicon States couldn't come at a better time. Author Lucie Greene shines lights on the issues in the tech world, how the government has gotten involved, and what that means for us.” —Women.com, One of Five Books You Need to Read Next

“Greene raises smart questions about Silicon Valley’s desire to layer the information superhighway on top of our communities and city services.” —800–CEO–READ, Editor's Choice

“A thought–provoking tech–focused tome, filled with female voices that are often notable by their absence in the 'who can shout the loudest' bubble of marketing, tech writers and self–appointed 'visionary leaders.'“ —Campaign

“At this point it seems self–evident that as the major technology companies like Facebook, Uber and Google continue to grow, they are gaining more influence over public life, while the ability of regular consumers or even governments to push back is diminishing. In Silicon States: The Power and Politics of Big Tech and What It Means for Our Future, a new book by Lucie Greene, the past and future consequences of this rapid change are laid out . . . The book is a bracing read, and arguably her expertise makes her well–suited to write insightfully about the biggest brands with the most consumers. Silicon States is a book fundamentally about the danger of concentrating so much power in so few hands.” —Longreads

“If you have even the faintest interest in how the biggest tech issues might play out over the next five years, Silicon States: The Power and Politics of Big Tech and What It Means for Our Future, published by Counterpoint Press, is well worth your time. Its author, the futurist Lucie Greene, skilfully negotiates some of the big issues (present and future) that the tech industry has saddled us with.” —The Irish Independent

“Greene looks at the ways in which multinational tech giants, including Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook and others have resisted government regulation while pushing to take over functions traditionally provided by the state . . . An open–eyed analysis of influential technology companies’ ambitions of interest to investors, tech users, and media consumers.” —Library Journal

“In Silicon States, futurist Lucie Greene delivers a whip–smart and ultimately scary read about the growing reach and power of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies. Companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon leap ahead so swiftly that regulators can’t keep up with them. Left to their own devices, tech titans are transforming every industry and shaping the future. What will that mean for the rest of us? Highly recommended.” —Dan Lyons, author of the New York Times bestselling Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start–Up Bubble and contributing writer of the HBO series Silicon Valley

“Timely and important. If you're not scared by Big Tech yet, you will be after reading this.” —Rowland Manthorpe, technology correspondent for Sky News and former senior editor of Wired UK

“An excoriating look at the new masters of our universe. For anyone who has ever cursed Facebook, spent too long on Instagram, been trolled on Twitter, or bought too many Apple products, this book is for you. Read it, and join the resistance.” —Tiffanie Darke, editor in chief, A+E Networks

“Lucie Greene’s lively, engaging narrative delivers essential, thought–provoking truths about Big Tech’s influence and impact that will make you look at the world—and our emerging future—in a whole new way.” —Robert Safian, founder of The Flux Group and former editor of Fast Company

“Can Silicon Valley fix the world? Can it even fix itself? With wild ambition and limitless hubris, America’s tech titans are rethinking and reinventing everything in sight. But they can’t always be bothered to think it through, so Lucie Greene has taken on the task—and the future she sees is not exactly Utopia. Silicon States can hardly be more timely.” —Frank Rose, author of The Art of Immersion

Kirkus Reviews

2018-05-23
Tech writer and think-tank denizen Greene looks at what may be big tech's greatest disruption of all: the disruption of the political order.Do you want Amazon making health care decisions on your account, if not your behalf? It's not far-fetched, writes the author. In the blink of an eye, even as power has shifted to the ultrawealthy, Silicon Valley's cultural influence now extends far beyond technology as such. "Having taken over our lifestyles," warns Greene, "they are vying for our healthcare, infrastructure, energy, space travel, education, and postal systems." They're not doing so out of altruistic intent, either; while some public good may be realized by education reform, for instance, there's also a lot of money to be made in the game. The political power of tech corporations, more so than other kinds of companies, is amplified, Greene adds, by the fact that the current president seems so weak and hapless. But, as she asks, "is Silicon Valley the right replacement?" Perhaps it is, if in a roundabout way. Though what she calls the "PayPal mafia" is characterized by a profound lack of social engagement, with leaders like Peter Thiel spouting a kind of Ayn Rand-ian me-first-ism. Though the current crop of youngsters in the valley are white males "with a real blind spot towards issues of race and gender," the vast number of young men and women coming along in Generation Z are different. As they enter the electorate and the workforce, this ethnically mixed, tolerant, "radically progressive" cohort is likely to shift politics and the culture leftward, meaning that in the near future, Silicon Valley may become a force for good—"or, at least, better than the current greying bunch burning the planet down." In that light, reinventing government may turn out to be just the thing that's needed.A fascinating exercise in description, prescription, and prognosis that we'll have a chance to field-test in the near future.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171677053
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	08/31/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

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