Years ago when I was living in the Bay Area, Tom Wolfe was hanging around doing research for a book on Silicon Valley. The rumour was that he left with the opinion that nothing interesting worth writing about happened there.
I haven't read it, but I subscribe to author Ryan Holiday's reading list email newsletter and he had this to say when the book came out:
"A nice new read about the Silicon Valley written by Wall Street Journal reporter (and Tom Wolfe's daughter). It's more pleasant and less cynical than Chaos Monkeys but probably a little more naive too. I was interested in the fate of the various Thiel Fellows since I've met a few of them over the years and was a college dropout myself. Wolfe makes the point that dropping out or getting one of these fellowships has become just as much of a 'track' as the Ivy League these days. Anyway, some great sentences in this book. Not sure how it will stand up over time but was worth a couple hours of my time."
> Anyway, some great sentences in this book. Not sure how it will stand up over time but was worth a couple hours of my time.
I'm not familiar with Ryan Holiday's work, but this almost sounds like a backhanded compliment, especially when you consider how long (and much work) it takes to write a passable book.
It's no longer about Alexandra's book; it's about Ryan's tight schedule.
It doesn't really read like it's meant to be praise or a compliment the same way, "eh, it was okay, but I wasn't blown away by it," isn't necessarily a compliment--a statement which I think is probably an accurate "synonym" to his original statement.
Thanks for the pointer. I was unaware of 1. how important midwesterners have been to Silicon Valley, and 2. how old the Silicon Valley-Wall Street cultural divide is. Plus, just a fun read.
It was a really great read. My dad was a solid state electrical engineer working on silicon, and went to Grinnell as well for his undergrad. We are from just south of there. Nice to hear about the place
When $300M of investment capital ends up in the $125,000 sale of a sock puppet mascot, was he (broadly speaking) wrong?
While big companies came out of that era, examined at the time and surrounded by since-deceased dotcom peers, I don't fault a reasonable person for concluding as he did.
Journalists, satirists, and activists have a very different definition of many things. Those 3 categories are deliberately blurred in recent years. (Mike Judge is more of a "voice of reason" than many others in those categories, actually.)
