Chaos Monkeys: Inside the Silicon Valley Money Machine - Softcover

Garcia Martinez, Antonio

3.71

13,177 ratings by Goodreads

9781785034541: Chaos Monkeys: Inside the Silicon Valley Money Machine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1785034545 ISBN 13: 9781785034541

Publisher: Ebury Press, 2016

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An adrenaline-fuelled expos� of life inside the tech bubble, Chaos Monkeys lays bare the secrets, power plays and lifestyle excesses of the visionaries, grunts, sociopaths, opportunists and money cowboys who are revolutionising our world. Written by startup CEO and industry provocateur Antonio Garc�a Mart�nez, this is Liar’s Poker meets The Social Network.

Computer engineers use ‘chaos monkey’ software to wreak havoc and test system robustness. Similarly, tech entrepreneurs like Antonio Garc�a Mart�nez are society’s chaos monkeys – their innovations disrupt every aspect of our lives, from transportation (Uber) and holidays (Airbnb) to television (Netflix) and dating (Tinder) – all in search of the perfect business miracle.

Describing himself as ‘high-strung, fast-talking, and wired on a combination of caffeine, fear, and greed at all times’, Garc�a Mart�nez left Wall Street to make his fortune in Silicon Valley, becoming CEO of his own startup, before bailing and being poached by Facebook’s nascent advertising team. Here he turned users’ data into profit for COO Sheryl Sandberg and chairman and CEO Mark ‘Zuck’ Zuckerberg. Forced out of Facebook in the wake of a bitter internal product war, Garc�a Mart�nez took his unique brand of entrepreneurial hyperactivity to rivals Twitter. Along the way, he got into a lot of trouble with a lot of people, brewed illegal beer on the Facebook campus (accidentally flooding Zuckerberg's desk), lived on a yacht, raced sport cars on the highway, and enthusiastically pursued the lifestyle of an overpaid Silicon Valley mercenary.

In Chaos Monkeys he tells you HOW – and HOW NOT – to make a fortune through startups and digital marketing. Highly entertaining and always offering genuine insight, Garc�a Mart�nez unravels the chaotic evolution of social media and online marketing. From startups and credit derivatives to Big Brother and data tracking, social media monetisation and digital ‘privacy’, he shares both his scathing observations and outrageous antics, taking us on a subversive and very funny tour of the fascinatingly insular and unbelievably wealthy tech industry.

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Review:

"An irresistible and indispensable 360-degree guide to the new technology establishment...a must-read" (New York Times)

"Darkly true...Garcia Martinez is brilliant at describing the relaxed yet self-centred attitudes of high-powered Californians" (Financial Times)

"These guys make Gordon Gekko look like Gandhi" (The Telegraph)

"Eye-popping" (Vanity Fair)

Book Description:

A gripping and insightful account from inside the secretive world of Silicon Valley's most powerful players

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