What It Is Actually Like to Be in the Engine Room of the Start-Up Economy - The New York Times

Excerpt from a Chaos Monkeys review

"No matter. Michael Lewis was never a top Wall Street bond salesman, but in “Liar’s Poker” he captured an era. “Chaos Monkeys” aims to do the same for Silicon Valley, and bracingly succeeds. Nothing I’ve ever read conveys better what it actually is like to be in the engine room of the start-up economy. There were moments I laughed out loud, something I never recall doing while reading about Steve Jobs. García Martínez shows how a start-up is less about making a product that actually does something than desperately demonstrating you are worthy of being hired by Google, Twitter or Facebook. He describes the way the big companies resemble life in Cuba or Communist China circa 1965, with “endless toil motivated by lapidary ideals handed down by a revered and unquestioned leader,” not to mention the posters on the wall proclaiming, “Proceed and Be Bold!” This is a place, he points out, where people take their laptops into a toilet stall and keep typing as they do what they came to do. If that strikes you as unseemly or unnecessary, you’ll never make it in Palo Alto."

What It Is Actually Like to Be in the Engine Room of the Start-Up Economy - The New York Times