Uncanny Valley: A Memoir

Following venture capitalists on social media, Wiener meditates on the problematic ideologies of the investors who drive Silicon Valley’s rapid growth. She acknowledges that indulging in this voyeuristic reading may not be healthy, but she finds herself fascinated by their public statements. These conversations show them defending capitalism and the business world with a gross lack of nuance or historical context. Wiener encounters similar “message board intellectualism” in conversation at a party with an avowed member of the “online rationalist community.” Wiener notes that rationalism’s commitment to truth-seeking as worthwhile, but also sees many rationalists who remain willfully ignorant of historical and social complexity. The ideology functions as “a mode of historical disengagement that [absolves] massive power imbalances” (244). Wiener finds this mode of thinking suspect and “flattering to power.” Further party conversation with the rationalist reveals an unsettling eagerness to disregard facts of structural inequity as she advances her arguments. 

Wiener describes the influence of venture capital on growing companies as “an intervention, a blunt force” (247), which drives the rapid shifts workplace culture and ethos as companies attempt to scale. At the open-source startup, an infusion of venture capital leads to an organizational makeover that dampens in the playful and freewheeling