Working in Silicon Valley

Working in Silicon Valley
Author: Alan Hyde
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2015-06-11
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1317451708
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This work examines the relationship between the rapid technological and economic growth characteristic of high technology districts and their distinct labor market institutions - short job tenures, rapid turnover, flat firm hierarchies, weak internal labor markets, high use of temporary labor, unusual uses of independent contracting, little unionization, unusual employee organization (e.g., chat groups, and ethnic organization), unequal income, minimal employment discrimination litigation, flexible compensation (especially stock options), and heavy use of immigrants on short-term visas. The author suggests that while these distinctive labor market institutions are somewhat unorthodox and may present legal problems, they play essential roles in high growth.

Voices from the Valley

Voices from the Valley
Author: Ben Tarnoff
Publisher: FSG Originals
Total Pages: 103
Release: 2020-10-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0374721262
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From FSGO x Logic: anonymous interviews with tech workers at all levels, providing a bird's-eye view of the industry In Voices from the Valley, the celebrated writers and Logic cofounders Moira Weigel and Ben Tarnoff take an unprecedented dive into the tech industry, conducting unfiltered, in-depth, anonymous interviews with tech workers at all levels, including a data scientist, a start-up founder, a cook who serves their lunch, and a PR wizard. In the process, Weigel and Tarnoff open the conversation about the tech industry at large, a conversation that has previously been dominated by the voices of CEOs. Deeply illuminating, revealing, and at times lurid, Voices from the Valley is a vital and comprehensive view of an industry that governs our lives. FSG Originals × Logic dissects the way technology functions in everyday lives. The titans of Silicon Valley, for all their utopian imaginings, never really had our best interests at heart: recent threats to democracy, truth, privacy, and safety, as a result of tech’s reckless pursuit of progress, have shown as much. We present an alternate story, one that delights in capturing technology in all its contradictions and innovation, across borders and socioeconomic divisions, from history through the future, beyond platitudes and PR hype, and past doom and gloom. Our collaboration features four brief but provocative forays into the tech industry’s many worlds, and aspires to incite fresh conversations about technology focused on nuanced and accessible explorations of the emerging tools that reorganize and redefine life today.

Breaking Into YOUR Silicon Valley

Breaking Into YOUR Silicon Valley
Author: Irwin Ki
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2018-11
Genre:
ISBN: 9781732895300
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Are you ready for career disruption? Have you ever wanted to work at Google, Facebook, Amazon, or a hot tech startup? But never tried due to the belief of needing coding experience, an Ivy League education, or think you'd have to move the West Coast. That's what I thought...I've watched a whole generation get brainwashed by thinking of starting their own business is the ONLY way to get rich. In reality, 1 in 4 millionaires has worked "Gateway Jobs" inside of a company before building their fortunes. I even got caught up in it, and did the cliche "quit my job and become an entrepreneur." My most successful business venture profited about $72,000....but that took about 7 years to realize. Divided out by 7 years that would put my income below the poverty level HOORAY STARTING A BUSINESS ← (insert sarcasm)Feeling like a failure, I decided to get a "job" to support myself. I had no real skills, so I got a "Gateway Job" as a Sales Development Representative (a fancy title for "meeting setter"), but by doing this I got mentorship, sales training, and shockingly made over $100,000 in my first year. This "Gateway Job" taught me far more than my business ever did (not to mention paid me far more).This opened my eyes into this highly-paid, highly-in-demand world of technology. I watched these technology "Gateway Jobs" rocket people from: -Austin started as a marketing intern at Uber, now she's on the executive team of a $70billion company. -Jim went from a customer support rep wearing a phone headset all day, to moving up the company ladder, to getting a juicy exit when the company IPO'd. -Karina went from Macy's retail, moved up to sales development, and now has a six-figure a year job as a senior renewals account manager.By the end of this book you will have a solid idea of which of the 38 "Gateway Job" will be the best way to break into (and have a successful & lucrative career) in departments such as marketing, sales, finance, operations, IT, legal, development, product management, customer support, and HR. Plus this advice is applicable if you are NOT in Silicon Valley. I break down INSIDER STRATEGIES on how to land a tech job in your hometown & INSIDER STEP BY STEP guide on how to go from blank resume to multiple six-figure offers.Here's the book in a nutshell: PART 1: Showing WHY technology is the best industry to get into, and +20 examples of people who got a small "Gateway Job" then landed their Dream Job. Includes interviews, numbers, and a "Gateway Job Flow Chart" for each career path.PART 2: We dig up and find 2-8 Gateway Jobs (38 in total ) for each department including marketing, sales, finance, operations, IT, legal, development, product management, customer support, and HR.PART 3: We then show you HOW to get your first "Gateway Job" with a 10 step action plan to give you a proven tech resume template (used to get into Google, Facebook, Cisco), exercises, scripts, and tips on how to position your resume and skills. BONUS chapters: How to work in the Crypto/Blockchain & Video game industry This book is a refreshing career guide for the 21st century and includes compiled industry knowledge and advice from industry leaders like Mark Cuban (Shark Tank), Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Eric Schmidt (Google), and much more If you are looking for a proven way to land your first internship or TRANSFORM your career and life."You won't regret getting this book" -Irwin Ki

Seeing Silicon Valley

Seeing Silicon Valley
Author: Mary Beth Meehan
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 113
Release: 2021-05-12
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 022678648X
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Also published in French as Visages de la Silicon Valley.

Abolish Silicon Valley

Abolish Silicon Valley
Author: Wendy Liu
Publisher: Watkins Media Limited
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2020-04-14
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1912248719
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Former insider turned critic Wendy Liu busts the myths of the tech industry, and offers a galvanising argument for why and how we must reclaim technology's potential for the public good. Former insider turned critic Wendy Liu busts the myths of the tech industry, and offers a galvanising argument for why and how we must reclaim technology's potential for the public good. "Lucid, probing and urgent. Wendy Liu manages to be both optimistic about the emancipatory potential of tech and scathing about the industry that has harnessed it for bleak and self-serving ends." -- Naomi Klein, author of On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal "An inspiring memoir manifesto...Technologists all over the world are realizing that no amount of code can substitute for political engagement. Liu's memoir is a road map for that journey of realization." -- Cory Doctorow, author of Radicalized and Little Brother Innovation. Meritocracy. The possibility of overnight success. What's not to love about Silicon Valley? These days, it's hard to be unambiguously optimistic about the growth-at-all-costs ethos of the tech industry. Public opinion is souring in the wake of revelations about Cambridge Analytica, Theranos, and the workplace conditions of Amazon workers or Uber drivers. It's becoming clear that the tech industry's promised "innovation" is neither sustainable nor always desirable. Abolish Silicon Valley is both a heartfelt personal story about the wasteful inequality of Silicon Valley, and a rallying call to engage in the radical politics needed to upend the status quo. Going beyond the idiosyncrasies of the individual founders and companies that characterise the industry today, Wendy Liu delves into the structural factors of the economy that gave rise to Silicon Valley as we know it. Ultimately, she proposes a more radical way of developing technology, where innovation is conducted for the benefit of society at large, and not just to enrich a select few.

Temp

Temp
Author: Louis Hyman
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2019-08-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0735224080
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Winner of the William G. Bowen Prize Named a "Triumph" of 2018 by New York Times Book Critics Shortlisted for the 800-CEO-READ Business Book Award The untold history of the surprising origins of the "gig economy"--how deliberate decisions made by consultants and CEOs in the 50s and 60s upended the stability of the workplace and the lives of millions of working men and women in postwar America. Over the last fifty years, job security has cratered as the institutions that insulated us from volatility have been swept aside by a fervent belief in the market. Now every working person in America today asks the same question: how secure is my job? In Temp, Louis Hyman explains how we got to this precarious position and traces the real origins of the gig economy: it was created not by accident, but by choice through a series of deliberate decisions by consultants and CEOs--long before the digital revolution. Uber is not the cause of insecurity and inequality in our country, and neither is the rest of the gig economy. The answer to our growing problems goes deeper than apps, further back than outsourcing and downsizing, and contests the most essential assumptions we have about how our businesses should work. As we make choices about the future, we need to understand our past.

Start Small, Stay Small

Start Small, Stay Small
Author: Rob Walling
Publisher: The Numa Group LLC
Total Pages: 215
Release: 2010
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0615373968
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Start Small, Stay Small is a step-by-step guide to launching a self-funded startup. If you're a desktop, mobile or web developer, this book is your blueprint to getting your startup off the ground with no outside investment.This book intentionally avoids topics restricted to venture-backed startups such as: honing your investment pitch, securing funding, and figuring out how to use the piles of cash investors keep placing in your lap.This book assumes: You don't have $6M of investor funds sitting in your bank account You're not going to relocate to the handful of startup hubs in the world You're not going to work 70 hour weeks for low pay with the hope of someday making millions from stock options There's nothing wrong with pursuing venture funding and attempting to grow fast like Amazon, Google, Twitter, and Facebook. It just so happened that most people are not in a place to do this.Start Small, Stay Small also focuses on the single most important element of a startup that most developers avoid: marketing. There are many great resources for learning how to write code, organize source control, or connect to a database. This book does not cover the technical aspects developers already know or can learn elsewhere. It focuses on finding your idea, testing it before you build, and getting it into the hands of your customers.

Ghost Work

Ghost Work
Author: Mary L. Gray
Publisher: Harper Business
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2019
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1328566242
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"A startling exposé of the invisible human workforce that powers the web--and how to bring it out of the shadows. Hidden beneath the surface of the internet, a new, stark reality is looming--one that cuts to the very heart of our endless debates about the impact of AI. Anthropologist Mary L. Gray and computer scientist Siddharth Suri unveil how the services we use from companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Uber can only function smoothly thanks to the judgment and experience of a vast human labor force that is kept deliberately concealed. The people who do 'ghost work' make the internet seem smart. They perform high-tech, on-demand piecework: flagging X-rated content, proofreading, transcribing audio, confirming identities, captioning video, and much more. The shameful truth is that no labor laws protect them or even acknowledge their existence. They often earn less than legal minimums for traditional work, they have no health benefits, and they can be fired at any time for any reason, or for no reason at all. An estimated 8 percent of Americans have worked in this 'ghost economy,' and that number is growing every day. In this unprecedented investigation, Gray and Suri make the case that robots will never completely eliminate 'ghost work' and the unchecked quest for artificial intelligence could spark catastrophic work conditions if not stopped in its tracks. Ultimately, they show how this essential type of work can create opportunity--rather than misery--for those who do it."--Dust jacket.

Building Mobile Apps at Scale

Building Mobile Apps at Scale
Author: Gergely Orosz
Publisher:
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2021-04-06
Genre:
ISBN: 9781638778868
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While there is a lot of appreciation for backend and distributed systems challenges, there tends to be less empathy for why mobile development is hard when done at scale. This book collects challenges engineers face when building iOS and Android apps at scale, and common ways to tackle these. By scale, we mean having numbers of users in the millions and being built by large engineering teams. For mobile engineers, this book is a blueprint for modern app engineering approaches. For non-mobile engineers and managers, it is a resource with which to build empathy and appreciation for the complexity of world-class mobile engineering. The book covers iOS and Android mobile app challenges on these dimensions: Challenges due to the unique nature of mobile applications compared to the web, and to the backend. App complexity challenges. How do you deal with increasingly complicated navigation patterns? What about non-deterministic event combinations? How do you localize across several languages, and how do you scale your automated and manual tests? Challenges due to large engineering teams. The larger the mobile team, the more challenging it becomes to ensure a consistent architecture. If your company builds multiple apps, how do you balance not rewriting everything from scratch while moving at a fast pace, over waiting on "centralized" teams? Cross-platform approaches. The tooling to build mobile apps keeps changing. New languages, frameworks, and approaches that all promise to address the pain points of mobile engineering keep appearing. But which approach should you choose? Flutter, React Native, Cordova? Native apps? Reuse business logic written in Kotlin, C#, C++ or other languages? What engineering approaches do "world-class" mobile engineering teams choose in non-functional aspects like code quality, compliance, privacy, compliance, or with experimentation, performance, or app size?

Disrupted

Disrupted
Author: Dan Lyons
Publisher: Hachette Books
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2016-04-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 031630607X
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An instant New York Times bestseller, Dan Lyons' "hysterical" (Recode) memoir, hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "the best book about Silicon Valley," takes readers inside the maddening world of fad-chasing venture capitalists, sales bros, social climbers, and sociopaths at today's tech startups. For twenty-five years Dan Lyons was a magazine writer at the top of his profession--until one Friday morning when he received a phone call: Poof. His job no longer existed. "I think they just want to hire younger people," his boss at Newsweek told him. Fifty years old and with a wife and two young kids, Dan was, in a word, screwed. Then an idea hit. Dan had long reported on Silicon Valley and the tech explosion. Why not join it? HubSpot, a Boston start-up, was flush with $100 million in venture capital. They offered Dan a pile of stock options for the vague role of "marketing fellow." What could go wrong? HubSpotters were true believers: They were making the world a better place ... by selling email spam. The office vibe was frat house meets cult compound: The party began at four thirty on Friday and lasted well into the night; "shower pods" became hook-up dens; a push-up club met at noon in the lobby, while nearby, in the "content factory," Nerf gun fights raged. Groups went on "walking meetings," and Dan's absentee boss sent cryptic emails about employees who had "graduated" (read: been fired). In the middle of all this was Dan, exactly twice the age of the average HubSpot employee, and literally old enough to be the father of most of his co-workers, sitting at his desk on his bouncy-ball "chair."