Silicon Alley


Book Description

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.




Secrets of Silicon Valley


Book Description

While the global economy languishes, one place just keeps growing despite failing banks, uncertain markets, and high unemployment: Silicon Valley. In the last two years, more than 100 incubators have popped up there, and the number of angel investors has skyrocketed. Today, 40 percent of all venture capital investments in the United States come from Silicon Valley firms, compared to 10 percent from New York. In Secrets of Silicon Valley, entrepreneur and media commentator Deborah Perry Piscione takes us inside this vibrant ecosystem where meritocracy rules the day. She explores Silicon Valley's exceptionally risk-tolerant culture, and why it thrives despite the many laws that make California one of the worst states in the union for business. Drawing on interviews with investors, entrepreneurs, and community leaders, as well as a host of case studies from Google to Paypal, Piscione argues that Silicon Valley's unique culture is the best hope for the future of American prosperity and the global business community and offers lessons from the Valley to inspire reform in other communities and industries, from Washington, DC to Wall Street.




Abolish Silicon Valley


Book Description

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.




The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story


Book Description

Tells the unlikely story of Silicon Valley through the life of one of its great achievers--Jim Clark, who founded Silicon Graphics and Netscape and may be on the verge of another trillion-dollar company.




Digital Hustlers


Book Description

The commercial and cultural explosion of the digital age may have been born in California's Silicon Valley, but it reached its high point of riotous, chaotic exuberance in New York City from 1995 to 2000—in the golden age of Silicon Alley. In that short stretch of time a generation of talented, untested twentysomethings deluged the city, launching thousands of new Internet ventures and attracting billions of dollars in investment capital. Many of these young entrepreneurs were entranced by the infinite promise of the new media; others seemed more captivated by the promise of infinite profits. The innovations they launched—from online advertising to 24-hour Webcasting—propelled both the Internet and the tech-stock boom of the late '90s. And in doing so they sent the city around them into a maelstrom of brainstorming, code-writing, fundraising, drugs, sex, and frenzied hype . . . until April 2000, when the NASDAQ zeppelin finally burst and fell at their feet. In the pages of Digital Hustlers, Alley insiders Casey Kait and Stephen Weiss have captured the excitement and excesses of this remarkable moment in time. Weaving together the voices of more than fifty of the industry's leading characters, this extraordinary oral history offers a ground-zero look at the birth of a new medium. Here are entrepreneurs like Kevin O'Connor of DoubleClick, Fernando Espuelas of StarMedia, and Craig Kanarick of Razorfish; commentators like Omar Wasow of MSNBC and Jason McCabe Calacanis of the Silicon Alley Reporter; and inimitable Alley characters like party diva Courtney Pulitzer and Josh Harris, the clown prince of Pseudo.com. Together they describe a world of sweatshop programmers and paper millionaires, of cocktail-napkin business plans and billion-dollar IPOs, of spectacular successes and flame-outs alike. Candid and open-eyed, bristling with energy and argument, Digital Hustlers is an unforgettable group portrait of a wildly creative culture caught in the headlights of achievement.




Ghost Work


Book Description

"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.




The Rainforest


Book Description

"[The authors] propose a radical new theory to explain the nature of innovation ecosystems -- human networks that generate extraordinary creativity and output. They argue that free market thinking fails to consider the impact of human nature on the innovation process. This ambitious work challenges the basic assumptions that economists have held for over a century."--Page 4 of cover




Growth Hacking


Book Description

In Growth Hacking: Silicon Valley's Best Kept Secret, growth consultants Raymond Fong and Chad Riddersen deconstruct the phenomenon used by Silicon Valley's fast growing tech elite, growth hacking. Raymond and Chad's framework, the ASP(TM), is an easy to understand blueprint that empowers any business to apply growth hacking. The ASP(TM) was developed through their work in the tech community and used to produce high-leverage, scalable growth for companies in a variety of industries including several companies featured on ABC's TV show Shark Tank. If you're looking for creative, cost-effective ways to grow your business, then ASP(TM) is the answer.




Beyond Silicon Valley


Book Description

In Beyond Silicon Valley: How One Online Course Helped Support Global Entrepreneurs, Professor Michael Goldberg takes readers on a global entrepreneurial adventure. He tells the stories of students who took his groundbreaking and hugely popular Beyond Silicon Valley massive open online course (MOOC), the most translated in Coursera history. To date, over 135,000 people have registered for Beyond Silicon Valley, and in this book, readers will meet nearly 20 students who started and grew their businesses, mentored other entrepreneurs, became innovation consultants, grew their entrepreneurial advocacy organizations, and more. These entrepreneurs live and work in transitioning economies throughout Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Goldberg also poignantly connects these startup struggles and successes to his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, a region that is making a transition of its own. Join Goldberg as he inspires--and finds inspiration from--innovators and entrepreneurial supporters everywhere.




Startup


Book Description

From veteran online journalist and BuzzFeed writer Doree Shafrir comes a hilarious debut novel that proves there are some dilemmas that no app can solve. Mack McAllister has a $600 million dollar idea. His mindfulness app, TakeOff, is already the hottest thing in tech and he's about to launch a new and improved version that promises to bring investors running and may turn his brainchild into a $1 billion dollar business -- in startup parlance, an elusive unicorn. Katya Pasternack is hungry for a scoop that will drive traffic. An ambitious young journalist at a gossipy tech blog, Katya knows that she needs more than another PR friendly puff piece to make her the go-to byline for industry news. Sabrina Choe Blum just wants to stay afloat. The exhausted mother of two and failed creative writer is trying to escape from her credit card debt and an inattentive husband-who also happens to be Katya's boss-as she rejoins a work force that has gotten younger, hipper, and much more computer literate since she's been away. Before the ink on Mack's latest round of funding is dry, an errant text message hints that he may be working a bit too closely for comfort with a young social media manager in his office. When Mack's bad behavior collides with Katya's search for a salacious post, Sabrina gets caught in the middle as TakeOff goes viral for all the wrong reasons. As the fallout from Mack's scandal engulfs the lower Manhattan office building where all three work, it's up to Katya and Sabrina to write the story the men in their lives would prefer remain untold. An assured, observant debut from the veteran online journalist Doree Shafrir, Startup is a sharp, hugely entertaining story of youth, ambition, love, money and technology's inability to hack human nature. "A biting and astute debut novel [with] many delights."-Lara Vapnyar, New York Times Book Review