The EconomistFebruary 22nd 2020 791I
nthepastdecadethenumberofpeople
usingtheinternethasleaptfrom1.8bn,or
a quarteroftheworld,to4.1bn,wellover
half.Internetcompaniesgrewwiththeir
user bases. Tenyearsago Facebookhad
roughly 2,000 employees; today 45,000
peopleworkforitfull-time,mostlyinSili-
conValley.Googlewentfrom24,000staff
to119,000inthesameperiod.Addinother
bigfirmssuchasAppleandNetflix,dozens
ofunlisted“unicorns”andthousandsof
startups,andthehead-countinthevalley
isequaltoa fair-sizedcity.
Who arethesepeople?A handfulare
stereotypical wunderkinds, too busy
building apps that improve the human
condition to waste time on human emo-
tions (or finish their degrees). But many—
all the normal folk in sales, marketing, hr,customersupport—arelikeAnnaWiener,
theauthorof“UncannyValley”,a memoir
aboutworkinginthetechindustry of the
2010s.Likemostpeople,thecondition they
mainlywanttoimproveistheirown.
Inhertelling,MsWiener,a sociology
majorwhohadthemisfortunetograduate
intotheglobalfinancialcrisis,starts her
professionalcareerasanassistant to a lit-
eraryagent inNew York.Tiredof being
privilegedyet“downwardlymobile”, she
joinsa techstartupontheeastcoast, flubs
it,butfailsupwardstoa better-paid job in
San Francisco. Once there she observes
first-hand the absurdities and extrava-
gancesoftheindustry.Oneofheremploy-ers is a meritocracy-obsessed cult with a
name-your-own-salary policy that leads to
an enormous gender pay gap. It marks its
first round of venture-capital funding by
building an exact replica of the Oval Office.
Another outfit unironically releases a
sinister feature called Addiction which, as
Ms Wiener ghostwrites in the blog post an-
nouncing it, “allows companies to see how
embedded they are into other people’s
lives”. She is at her best when describing
the carelessness that would give the tech
industry its well-deserved reputation for
hubris. “Don’t be evil” is a blithe motto if
the definition of “evil” is unexamined.
In New York, Ms Wiener recalls, “I had
never considered that there were people
behind the internet.” But in San Francisco
“it was impossible to forget”. After all, she
was one of them. Occasionally she has
pangs of conscience, asking a friend, “Do
you think I work at a surveillance com-
pany?” But such concerns fall by the way-
side in a cloud of ecstasy and clean air, as
she finds the twin millennial grails of a de-
cent salary and comprehensive health care.
Ever the ingénue, Ms Wiener does not set
out to straddle the world like a colossus.
She and legions like her are content merely
to peep about from under the legs of digital
history’s great men—men like the founder
of “the social network everyone hated”, as
she periphrastically refers to him.
“Of course, I hate [Facebook]. WhoHistoriesofthewebParadiselost
Twodotcommemoirspointtoa pressingquestion:whoseinternetisitanyway?Uncanny Valley.By Anna Wiener. MCD
Books; 288 pages; $27. Fourth Estate; £16.99
Lurking: How a Person Became a User. By
Joanne McNeil. MCD Books; 288 pages; $28Books & arts
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