Santhosh Guru reviewed Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener
The prescient, page-turning account of a journey in Silicon Valley: a defining memoir of our …
Review of 'Uncanny Valley' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
(More of 2.5 stars)
It is a memoir about a person who works in the publishing industry of New York venturing into the tech scene. She tries her hand at a flailing tech startup in New York. She then moves to San Francisco, works for Mixpanel and Github. She seems to strike a chord and befriend Patrick Collison of Stripe. She opines a lot about the scene of SFO, Tyler Cowen, Julia Galef, and various people and shares her view.
The author seems to be a down-to-earth person and the book is written well. But she seems like a bickering person. Someone who is an outsider with some strong views and couldn’t come to digest the changes in Silicon Valley. I could not resonate with a lot of problems she was facing.
I had the same problem with a graphic novel based memoir, Good Talk. I could understand their point …
(More of 2.5 stars)
It is a memoir about a person who works in the publishing industry of New York venturing into the tech scene. She tries her hand at a flailing tech startup in New York. She then moves to San Francisco, works for Mixpanel and Github. She seems to strike a chord and befriend Patrick Collison of Stripe. She opines a lot about the scene of SFO, Tyler Cowen, Julia Galef, and various people and shares her view.
The author seems to be a down-to-earth person and the book is written well. But she seems like a bickering person. Someone who is an outsider with some strong views and couldn’t come to digest the changes in Silicon Valley. I could not resonate with a lot of problems she was facing.
I had the same problem with a graphic novel based memoir, Good Talk. I could understand their point of view but I don’t resonate or agree with the writer’s judgment. I totally didn’t understand the point of why this book was celebrated so much. Is it because she is against the grain and criticizing Silicon Valley? Or is she an insider in the New York publishing coterie who knows how to market and distribute a book well? I persisted through the book to find out views that are something new but in vain.
She complains a lot about the garbage language that the tech startups in San Francisco use. She might have taken a snapshot of that and captured it in her book. But I think she misses the point of emergence. Language evolves, morphs, and grows. Personally, I might not like using the term “Let’s double click on that” or “Let’s pin that down for a moment” but what is wrong with it if people understand it.
When I was new to the startup scene, I was curious about the term “copy text” or “copywriter”. I was baffled at that term and used to ask what the fuck it was. But slowly learned what it is and I see that it’s a remnant of the publishing and advertising industry. I might have hated that term for a day or so.
In my son’s generation, the terms like “outro” are commonly used and people get it. We all are aware of introduction music or intro title. But people simply get that “outro” is related to the end of the video and move forward. They don’t ruminate about this term and classify it is a garbage language. Many people still are finicky about using the term “pre-pone” and emphasize using the term “advance” or “reschedule”. But the joke is on us, as people who “prepone”, the “outro” music is moving forward and do give a damn about me and likes.
