Book Description

Since the initial publication of Cultures@SiliconValley fourteen years ago, much has changed in Silicon Valley. The corporate landscape of the Valley has shifted, with tech giants like Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter vying for space with a halo of applications that connect people for work, play, romance, and education. Contingent labor has been catalyzed by ubiquitous access to the Internet on smartphones, enabling ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft and space-sharing apps like Airbnb. Entrepreneurs compete for people's attention and screen time. Alongside these changes, daily life for all but the highest echelon has been altered by new perceptions of scarcity, risk, and shortage. Established workers and those new to the workforce try to adjust. The second edition of Cultures@SiliconValley brings the story of technological saturation and global cultural diversity in this renowned hub of digital innovation up to the present. In this fully updated edition, J. A. English-Lueck provides readers with a host of new ethnographic stories, documenting the latest expansions of Silicon Valley to San Francisco and beyond. The book explores how changes in technology, especially as mobile phones make the Internet accessible everywhere, impact work, family, and community life. The inhabitants of Silicon Valley illustrate in microcosm the social and cultural identity of the future.