Don't Be Evil

A TIMES BEST CURRENT AFFAIRS BOOK OF THE YEAR The award-winning Financial Times columnist exposes the threat that Big Tech poses to our democracies, our economies and ourselves 'Powerful' Sunday Times Google and Facebook receive 90% of the world's news advertising spend. Amazon takes half of all e-commerce in the US. Google and Apple operating systems run on all but 1% of cell phones globally. And 80% of corporate wealth is now held by 10% of companies - the digital titans. How did these once-idealistic and innovative companies come to manipulate elections, violate our privacy and pose a threat to the fabric of our democracy? Through her skilled reporting and unparalleled access, Rana Foroohar reveals the true extent to which the 'FAANG's (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google) crush or absorb competitors, hijack our personal data and mental space and offshore their exorbitant profits. What's more, she shows how these threats to our democracies, livelihoods and minds are all intertwined. Yet Foroohar also lays out a plan for how we can resist, creating a framework that fosters innovation while protecting us from the dark side of digital technology. 'A masterful critique' Observer 'Insightful and powerfully argued' Daily Mail 'Essential reading ... whip-smart' Niall Ferguson 'Laser vision and trenchant business analysis' Shoshana Zuboff

A TIMES BEST CURRENT AFFAIRS BOOK OF THE YEAR The award-winning Financial Times columnist exposes the threat that Big Tech poses to our democracies, our economies and ourselves 'Powerful' Sunday Times Google and Facebook receive 90% of the world's news advertising spend. Amazon takes half of all e-commerce in the US. Google and Apple operating systems run on all but 1% of cell phones globally. And 80% of corporate wealth is now held by 10% of companies - the digital titans. How did these once-idealistic and innovative companies come to manipulate elections, violate our privacy and pose a threat to the fabric of our democracy? Through her skilled reporting and unparalleled access, Rana Foroohar reveals the true extent to which the 'FAANG's (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google) crush or absorb competitors, hijack our personal data and mental space and offshore their exorbitant profits. What's more, she shows how these threats to our democracies, livelihoods and minds are all intertwined. Yet Foroohar also lays out a plan for how we can resist, creating a framework that fosters innovation while protecting us from the dark side of digital technology. 'A masterful critique' Observer 'Insightful and powerfully argued' Daily Mail 'Essential reading ... whip-smart' Niall Ferguson 'Laser vision and trenchant business analysis' Shoshana Zuboff

"An absolute must-read for anyone interested not just in big tech, but in what it takes to not lose your soul in modern-day America." --Naomi Fry, staff writer at The New Yorker A whip-smart, darkly funny, and timely memoir of one woman's twelve years inside Google and her transformation from insider to dissenter as the company's ideals begin to unravel from within. When Claire Stapleton joined Google in 2007, it felt like stepping into a worldview as much as a job. The company offered not just a career, but a moral project. In the heady early years of Big Tech and when Google's in-house slogan was "Don't be evil," it was easy to believe that technology wasn't just changing the world--it was going to fix it. Stapleton quickly became known as the "Bard of Google," pulled into the rooms where the company narrated itself--writing speeches, blog posts, and executive communications for leaders including Larry Page. As she rose through increasingly rarefied roles, from the storied Creative Lab to YouTube marketing, she helped shape the myth from the inside. But as the gap between Google's ideals and its reality widened, the dissonance became impossible to ignore. In 2018, amid outrage over the company's handling of sexual harassment, Stapleton helped organize the 20,000-employee Google Walkout--a defining rupture in Silicon Valley's self-image that The New York Times called a "watershed moment in tech." Overnight, she became a public face of employee revolt--and no longer someone the company could neatly fold back into its story. Sharp, witty, and unsparing, Don't Be Evil is an insider's account of how power actually works--and a deeper reckoning with the stories we tell about work, purpose, and ourselves. In a culture that collapses identity into work, and as tech elites blur the line between private authority and public life, it asks: how much can you change from within--and when is it time to walk away?

"An absolute must-read for anyone interested not just in big tech, but in what it takes to not lose your soul in modern-day America." --Naomi Fry, staff writer at The New Yorker A whip-smart, darkly funny, and timely memoir of one woman's twelve years inside Google and her transformation from insider to dissenter as the company's ideals begin to unravel from within. When Claire Stapleton joined Google in 2007, it felt like stepping into a worldview as much as a job. The company offered not just a career, but a moral project. In the heady early years of Big Tech and when Google's in-house slogan was "Don't be evil," it was easy to believe that technology wasn't just changing the world--it was going to fix it. Stapleton quickly became known as the "Bard of Google," pulled into the rooms where the company narrated itself--writing speeches, blog posts, and executive communications for leaders including Larry Page. As she rose through increasingly rarefied roles, from the storied Creative Lab to YouTube marketing, she helped shape the myth from the inside. But as the gap between Google's ideals and its reality widened, the dissonance became impossible to ignore. In 2018, amid outrage over the company's handling of sexual harassment, Stapleton helped organize the 20,000-employee Google Walkout--a defining rupture in Silicon Valley's self-image that The New York Times called a "watershed moment in tech." Overnight, she became a public face of employee revolt--and no longer someone the company could neatly fold back into its story. Sharp, witty, and unsparing, Don't Be Evil is an insider's account of how power actually works--and a deeper reckoning with the stories we tell about work, purpose, and ourselves. In a culture that collapses identity into work, and as tech elites blur the line between private authority and public life, it asks: how much can you change from within--and when is it time to walk away?