The Boy Kings

I could not get past the author's condescending attitude toward the engineers she worked with - every time they were discussed, it was with a weird bemused air that conveyed the message “check out these silly nerds.” I got the strong impression that despite her climbing the ranks at Facebook, she never stopped being jealous of and bitter about the success/prestige of said engineers. She also makes a lot of generalizations, and projects her insecurities onto everyone else in her life. Please tell me more about how hard it is being a liberal arts degree-holder in Silicon Valley.

As a software developer myself I'm always disappointed to see people contributing to the “othering” of tech workers - the us vs. them mentality that pokes fun at how eccentric and socially awkward we supposedly are. The writing was just okay, but the underlying sentiment of the whole book left a bad taste in my mouth.

Focusing on how Facebook is transforming us into a hyper-digital society, Losse supplies an alluring glimpse into the early days of the startup. And though I enjoy her nontechnical perspective of the company, I would have preferred a more critical, self-aware examination of the culture since she, too, is a constituent of the same well educated, whitewashed, upper middle class that she ridicules.