Book Review: Uncanny Valley

Uncanny Valley by Anna Weiner. Strategically photographed next to this author’s photo of Golden Gate Bridge. :)

I had mixed feelings about Anna Weiner’s memoir Uncanny Valley. In the book, the author (originally a New Yorker) reminisces on her years working in tech-adjacent roles at a few different tech companies in San Francisco. For several years, I (originally a Chicagoan) have also worked in a tech adjacent role for tech clients in San Francisco, so this book resonated with me.

However, I work for a PR agency with tech clients, and Weiner always worked inside those tech companies, so it was interesting to get a different perspective. When you work in PR and marketing for tech companies, you tend to hear, write about, and pitch a pretty glossy view of the industry. Uncanny Valley dives deep beyond the stories you read about in the press (stories that I have helped write!) and gives readers a look at the systemic failures at the root of some of the biggest issues in Silicon Valley.

Reading this with a 2021 lens, it’s easy to see how the tech industry has such a huge diversity and inclusion problem. Weiner paints a picture iconic tech companies that began as glorified fraternities for smart, accomplished, privileged white dudes. She shows readers how these companies didn’t begin to make changes to their toxic environments until whistleblowers essentially forced them to. Sadly, while this book has now been out for a couple of years, I don’t think very much has changed since Weiner published this exposé. Many of these companies are still predominantly white, predominantly male, and continue to have bias and discrimination problems. Weiner’s book does a great job laying the foundation to explain why the tech industry is what it is today.

Another thing I enjoyed in Uncanny Valley was the San Francisco scenery. Probably everyone reading this blog is aware of this, but I lived there for three years after college before moving back to Chicago in September last year. I don’t know if San Francisco nostalgia was necessarily the vibe Weiner was going for in this book, because it’s mostly focused on the problematic aspects of the city. Regardless, Uncanny Valley made me miss the San Francisco’s fog, sunshine, nature, and even the quirky SFers who talk about SPACs and APIs in the park.

My biggest gripe with this book was how removed the author tries to be from the material. She writes as if she was a fly on the wall, an invisible observer during her years in tech. The sentences are all structured like, “he did this, he said that, they believed this.” You never see much reflection on her end on what her role was in all that she witnessed. 

Of course, I am not expecting Weiner to go back in time and change what she did. I understand that she often felt out of place, was likely experiencing imposter syndrome, and had to do what she could to survive in a toxic environment. But that analysis I just did was all from me. Weiner never provides that kind of self-reflection, and for someone taking the time to write a whole book about these topics, I would have hoped for a deeper level of reflection.

The lack of analysis seems to be Weiner’s style, because you see it throughout the memoir. She spends a lot of time listing events and not a lot of time synthesizing them. The first ~260 pages are basically a long list of the weird behaviors of Silicon Valley men. On page 120, you read about men scootering in the office, blogging about Marxism, and wearing athletic jackets to work. On page 190, you read about men skateboarding in the office, blogging about socialism, and wearing athletic sneakers to work. On page 250, you read about men bicycling in the office, blogging about Bernie Sanders, and wearing athletic vests to work. Okay, I’m being sarcastic, but you get my point.

Oddly, in the last 2 or 3 pages of the book, Weiner ends the memoir with a brief mention of the 2016 election and how sad she was that Trump won. For me, this felt like a strange way to wrap up a book that hadn’t talked much about politics and had predominantly focused on toxic work cultures.

The TLDR here is that this book makes some important points, and contrary to its purpose, actually made me miss San Francisco a lot. But I think she could have made those points even more strongly in a nice, succinct, juicy 2000 word article in The Cut rather than dragging them into an entire book.

Rating: 3 stars

Rating Scale:
5 Stars: I love this book!!!
4 Stars: Pretty good
3 Stars: Good
2 Stars: Not for me
1 Star: Truly dislike