Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley
The instant New York Times bestseller, now available in paperback and featuring a new afterword from the author--the insider's guide to the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, the inner workings of the tech world, and who really runs Silicon Valley
"Incisive. . . . The most fun business book I have read this year. . . . Clearly there will be people who hate this book -- which is probably one of the things that makes it such a great read."
-- Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times
Imagine a chimpanzee rampaging through a datacenter powering everything from Google to Facebook. Infrastructure engineers use a software version of this "chaos monkey" to test online services' robustness--their ability to survive random failure and correct mistakes before they actually occur. Tech entrepreneurs are society's chaos monkeys. One of Silicon Valley's most audacious chaos monkeys is Antonio García Martínez.
After stints on Wall Street and as CEO of his own startup, García Martínez joined Facebook's nascent advertising team. Forced out in the wake of an internal product war over the future of the company's monetization strategy, García Martínez eventually landed at rival Twitter. In Chaos Monkeys, this gleeful contrarian unravels the chaotic evolution of social media and online marketing and reveals how it is invading our lives and shaping our future.
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Antonio Garcia Martinez has been an adviser to Twitter, a product manager for Facebook, the CEO/founder of AdGrok (a venture-backed start-up acquired by Twitter), and a strategist for Goldman Sachs. He lives on a forty-foot sailboat on the San Francisco Bay.
"Michael Lewis was never a top Wall Street bond salesman, but in Liar's Poker he captured an era. Chaos Monkeys aims to do the same for Silicon Valley, and bracingly succeeds."--New York Times Book Review
"Brilliant."--Financial Times
"This year's best non-business book about business.... Garcia Martinez is a real writer.... A classic tale, well told."--Techcrunch
"Incisive.... The most fun business book I have read this year.... Clearly there will be people who hate this book -- which is probably one of the things that makes it such a great read."--Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times
"An irresistible and indispensable 360-degree guide to the new technology establishment.... A must-read."--Jonathan A. Knee, New York Times
"An unvarnished account... of Silicon Valley."--CBS This Morning
"Traces the evolution of social media and online marketing and reveals how it's become a part of our daily lives and how it will affect our future."--Leonard Lopate, WNYC
"If you're in a startup or even plan to sue one, Chaos Monkeys is the book to read."--John Biggs, TechCrunch
"This gossipy insider account from the former Twitter adviser, Facebook product manager, and start-up CEO dishes dirt while also explaining the ins and outs of Silicon Valley."--Neal Wyatt, Library Journal
"[Garcia Martinez] reads like a philosopher and historian, the exact travel guide you'd want to walk you through the inner workings of Facebook. His tell-all memoir is the best writing out there on one of the world's most powerful companies. And he even manages to make the ins and outs of online advertising fascinating."--Aarti Shahanti, npr.org
"There are some books that are just too good to miss.... In his insider-tells-all book, García Martínez discusses everything from goofy stories to cultural secrets about some of the country's most powerful and influential businesses."--Atlantic
"[García Martínez] is, by his own account, a dissolute character.... He is nonetheless, by the end of his account, a winning antihero, a rebel against Silicon Valley's culture of nonconformist conformity.... The reader can't help rooting for him."--Jacob Weisberg, New York Review of Books
"Unlike most founding narratives that flow out of the Valley, Chaos Monkeys dives into the unburnished, day-to-day realities: the frantic pivots, the enthusiastic ass-kissing, the excruciating internal politics.... [García] can be rude, but he's shrewd, too."--Bloomberg Businessweek
"Romps through Martínez's wild trajectory from Wall Streeter to pre-IPO Facebook employee, with the dramatic sale of his Y Combinator-backed ad-tech startup (to Twitter) in between."--Jillian D'Onfirio Business Insider
An NPR Best Book of the Year - A Business Insider Top 20 Business Book of the Year - An Inc. Best Book of the Year for Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners--
