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A searing insight into the radicalization of Silicon Valley, from Elon Musk to Peter Thiel, David Sacks and Donald Trump, and how it will affect the future of all our lives. From AI causing the end of the world to life-extension start-ups that promise billionaires they can reverse aging and Elon Musk tanking billions of dollars of investors'' money with his bizarre tweets - the Silicon Valley utopian-tech dream has turned sour. New York Times bestselling author Jacob Silverman leads us on a critical investigation into the radicalization of Silicon Valley and the increasingly weird billionaires that run our online lives and exert a huge influence over the stability of the world economy. At the centre of this book lies Elon Musk, now a deeply libertarian right-wing influencer. But this is about more than just one man. Instead, Silverman reveals a network of oligarchs he calls the Icarus Club - an increasingly extremist political influencer class who have radical ideas for America and the world. Jacob travels to Austin, Texas, Palo Alto and Silicon Valley, California, and Miami, Florida - in order to meet the people are already living with the real-life consequences of the these men''s philosophies, from the hollowing out of worker protection to the massive funding of MAGA candidates. This is sometimes frightening, sometimes darkly humorous and highly readable narrative for anyone who wants to know what''s happened to Silicon Valley. As the erratic influence of the Icarus Club continues to spread around the world, the story that Jacob has to tell will have a profound relevance for us all.
About the author
JACOB SILVERMAN is the author of Terms of Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection and co-author of Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud, which was a New York Times Bestseller. He’s a contributing editor at The New Republic and The Baffler, and his work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Vanity Fair, and many other publications. He lives in New York.
Report
Jacob Silverman is one of the sharpest and most plugged-in tech commentators working today. He understands subcultures, politics and the internet. He can tell you what's in the black box, and what it's doing to our society. Gilded Rage is unmissable. Hari Kunzru, Writer and Journalist, author of 'Gods without Men', 'White Tears' and 'Red Pill'
