A Journey into the Savage Heart of Silicon Valley
‘Under the latest iteration of the American Dream, if you aren't a billionaire yet, you haven't tried hard enough.’
At the height of the start-up boom, journalist Corey Pein sets out for Silicon Valley to make his millions. Plunging head first into entrepreneur culture, he joins the thousands of other—mostly white, male nerds—all hoping to become the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg.
But as he moves from overpriced flat to overpriced tent, lines up at tech conferences where white supremacists spout hatred disguised as innovation, and watches desperate would-be entrepreneurs pay to pitch their ideas to billionaire investors, Pein discovers that the positive, feel-good self-image that the tech tycoons have crafted is a lie.
Live Work Work Work Die is a scathing exploration of Silicon Valley tech culture, depicted from the inside. Vivid and incisive, it is a troubling portrait of a self-obsessed tech industry bent on imposing its disturbing visions on the rest of us.
COREY PEIN is an investigative reporter and a regular contributor to The Baffler. A former staff writer for Willamette Week, he has also written for Slate, Salon, Foreign Policy, The American Prospect, and the Columbia Journalism Review, among other publications. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
“Manages to capture something essential about Silicon Valley.”
THE NEW YORK TIMES
“Pein’s book unmasks the shell game being run by venture capitalists in an industry that is not nearly as benign as it claims to be.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY