Title: Burn Book: A Tech Love Story by Kara Swisher
Number of Pages: 320
Main Thrust
Tech CEOs and their companies have too much, unchecked power with no interest in serving the interests of their ill informed customers unless forced by governments. There is little to no regulation for these multinational behemoths that influence elections around the world, destroy lives through leaked videos or carelessness and fuel addiction to their services. Mark Zuckerberg is particularly exposed.
Book Surprises
Women CEOs are no better behaved than male ones. Sheryl Sandburg seemed to lose just as little sleep as Zuckerberg over reports that Facebook was being used to fuel genocide in Myanmar. Silicon Valley is not welcoming of women, people of colour in its ranks despite branding itself as liberal and merit based. Western media, apart from Rupert Murdoch, did not understand the power tech companies were accumulating.
Worth Reading
For the extraordinary story of early Google that Swisher witnessed and how some of those people’s careers turned out. Swisher’s honest animus towards certain “tech bros” like Uber’s Travis Kalanick, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, her wistful sadness on the “descent” of Elon Musk into a caricature of his former self. Swisher’s admission of her own huge ego, health scares, watching mainstream media implode and yet refuse to save itself.
Durability
Fans of Kara Swisher journalism will love Burn Book. Not enough original insights for me compared to Sarah Frier’s No Filter, Steven Levy’s Facebook: The Inside Story or Nick Bilton’s Hatching Twitter. Important first person testament of Silicon Valley in the 20th and early 21st century though. Highly recommended.
Good Book/Bad Book: Good book. Well written, researched, gossipy, lots of verification on important events; a hallmark of Kara Swisher journalism career.
About
American Journalist and podcaster Kara Swisher’s 35 year observations on the rise of Silicon Valley companies and the men (mostly!) who founded them from Microsoft (Bill Gates) and Apple (Steve Jobs) to Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg), Uber (Travis Kalanick), and Tesla (Elon Musk). Tell all memoir style.
Availability: Amazon, Barnes & Nobles. Most digital retailers.
Substack: @davidjacktumusiime
X/Twitter: @davidtumusiime
IG: @davidjacktumusiime
Email: [email protected]
