Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley
Published by Penguin Random House Audio
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About this audiobook
Silicon Valley is a modern utopia where anyone can change the world. Unless you're a woman.
For women in tech, Silicon Valley is not a fantasyland of unicorns, virtual reality rainbows, and 3D-printed lollipops, where millions of dollars grow on trees. It's a "Brotopia," where men hold all the cards and make all the rules. Vastly outnumbered, women face toxic workplaces rife with discrimination and sexual harassment, where investors take meetings in hot tubs and network at sex parties.
In this powerful exposé, Bloomberg TV journalist Emily Chang reveals how Silicon Valley got so sexist despite its utopian ideals, why bro culture endures despite decades of companies claiming the moral high ground (Don't Be Evil! Connect the World!)—and how women are finally starting to speak out and fight back.
Drawing on her deep network of Silicon Valley insiders, Chang opens the boardroom doors of male-dominated venture capital firms like Kleiner Perkins, the subject of Ellen Pao's high-profile gender discrimination lawsuit, and Sequoia, where a partner once famously said they "won't lower their standards" just to hire women. Interviews with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, and former Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer—who got their start at Google, where just one in five engineers is a woman—reveal just how hard it is to crack the Silicon Ceiling. And Chang shows how women such as former Uber engineer Susan Fowler, entrepreneur Niniane Wang, and game developer Brianna Wu, have risked their careers and sometimes their lives to pave a way for other women.
Silicon Valley's aggressive, misogynistic, work-at-all costs culture has shut women out of the greatest wealth creation in the history of the world. It's time to break up the boys' club. Emily Chang shows us how to fix this toxic culture—to bring down Brotopia, once and for all.
Editor's Note
A powerful exposé…
Emily Chang’s takedown of the boys’ club of Silicon Valley continues a necessary conversation about the ways that misogyny and sexism have shaped the tech industry.
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Reviews for Brotopia
83 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I remember sitting down in my first classroom at the University of Massachusetts Amherst on an August day almost a decade ago. I was in orientation for the Engineering Department. Something felt very wrong. Sure, the room was weird; the desks with chairs attached and the fluorescent lighting. But that wasn't it. And then I realized—I was surrounded by almost exclusively men. In my class of more than fifty students there were only two women! I'd never been in an environment like this before, and I found it extremely uncomfortable. I dropped out of UMass after my freshman year, and who knows if more women in my engineering program might have convinced me to stay longer.As an adolescent in the Pioneer Valley, or the Happy Valley, as some call it locally, I was steeped in feminist values. I also have always had a perverse fascination with Silicon Valley, dipping my toes in now and again. So when I heard about an upcoming book called “Brotopia,” I got it on pre-order.I’m not familiar with the author, Emily Chang, although apparently she’s famous, running a show on Bloomberg about the tech industry. A veteran journalist, this is her first book.You may have heard about this book as the “sex parties” text. Although there is a chapter on events that might be described as such, it was well hidden in the second half, and was just part of a much more sweeping narrative on misogyny in the high-tech industry.Chang begins by informing us that women in tech reached a pinnacle in 1984 at 40% (not far from half). It’s now down to 25%, although that ratio is even worse when you look at VC (7%) and founder funding (2%). She discussed the ways in which privilege play out in gender. One example she explores is the theory of meritocracy. The term was modernized as a piece of satire, to be ironically adopted by an oblivious Silicon Valley. Meritocratic systems rely on a “level-playing-field,” and women are on anything but these days. Obviously, people like Peter Thiel didn’t get to the top just because they’re better than all the women...Regardless of Chang’s personal relationship with the subject, she has chosen to relentlessly pursue the rhetoric of financial efficiency and the profit motive to justify her stance. Maybe this is becoming somewhat of a trend in Silicon Valley, the capitalist enclave that it is, after Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In.” Whenever we’re left wondering, “but why would gender equality be preferable?” Chang comes back to her refrain: “because your company will be more profitable.” Chang may believe that there might be non-financial motives that might justify gender equality, but the closest you’ll find to them in this text are her explorations of meritocracy. It’s indicative of just how bad things have gotten in Silicon Valley, that humanistic values have lost their appeal.The book discusses a lot of topics that aren’t inherently bad or hurtful—for example, romantic relationships between colleagues. What do Capitol Hill, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley all have in common? Inequality of wealth and power. Why is it inappropriate for a venture capitalist to have a relationship with one of his entrepreneurs; because of the power imbalance. Chang explores this subject, but doesn’t step back to critique our systems of capitalism and colonialism that make inequalities of wealth and power (and the abuses therein) inevitable.We might continue to see horrific episodes in these environments until they become more egalitarian—not just across the gender spectrum, but also across the spectrum of wealth and power.This book is a must-read for anyone in tech today, and anyone interested in the #metoo movement.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wonderful and packed with details. Learned so much applicable information that I easily retain.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Amazing, sad, yet hopeful and very relatable stories about being a woman in 90% white male industry.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A must read.
IMO, her best work yet.
Emily, this is a masterpiece. An anthem for women, for which regardless of the background/race/how you identify, we can relate.
The unwanted stares, glances, comments all have made us uncomfortable, insecure, demeanored, less than our worth. The sexual advances that we are told to brush it off, and forced to get used to on the ground of it being perceived as normal.
There is certainly more work to be done, not only in the tech industry, but across all fields of work especially the ones that are predominantly male.
Also across different countries in the world. Africa, Middle & Far East, Europe, Australia e.t.c.
This book will serve as a catalyst. Women looking out for one another & setting up foundation for the future generation.
I have watched Emily religiously on Bloomberg Tech and Studio 1.0, and when I heard she was issuing a book, I had to look for it. Only for I to find the audio version.
This is the first audiobook I have listened to, and I am so proud it was a book by you. I have listened to it to and from work, listened to it while working out, also just before sleep.
So thank you Emily Chang and your entire team for putting this together. All the hard work put into this was worthyt.
Before I end up writing way too much, It's just safe to say AN AMAZING BOOK THAT EVERYONE MUST READ!!! YOU GO GIRL!!! - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This isn't new information if you've been reading the news, but Chang puts it together well. She starts with how we've built the bro stereotype of coding--that it's innate, that boys are better at it, and that we've kept women out. And from there she examines how companies either recruit or fail to recruit women, the myth of meritocracy in Silicon Valley, and the toxic culture in tech and venture capital. There are a lot of interviews with women in Silicon Valley and she does highlight when there have been successes--Google's early efforts to recruit women, for example. Bonus fun: Peter Thiel comes off even worse than usual. Good read.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mandatory reading for anyone who uses technology aka everyone.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Here we thought the Mad Men culture was a thing of the past. Emily Chang comes along to show us that it is going strong in the tech industry.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I enjoy Emily Chang's conversations and interviews on Bloomberg News. I also enjoyed her book. I'm not surprised by the harassment and sexual assaults on women by men who are CEOs, managers, entrepreneurs, investors etc. These men prey on vulnerable women who are looking for investment for their start-ups, contacts, promotions and career advice.
Chang provided a number of stories of sexual assault, discrimination and harassment. What angered me was the complete ineptitude of HR professionals and departments to investigate and resolve these assault issues. Women who make these charges are subject to ridicule and retribution. Many women do not report unwanted sexual behavior by men who are their superiors or even their equals.
Silicon Valley behavior towards women is no different than the slimy behavior and comments exhibited in many Hollywood casting couches, Wall Street boardrooms or in the White House Oval Office.
Read this and weep!