In 2017, Silicon Valley’s reputation as a rule-bending-but-ultimately-well-intentioned industry finally attracted some scrutiny. So it’s no surprise that many of the year’s best tech books grapple with the unsavory side effects of our favorite apps and gadgets. In keeping with our year-end tradition, we’re telling you the tech books that are worth your money. (And in case that doesn’t convince you, we’re also giving you a sneak peek: Each recommendation comes with an excerpt.)
In the recommendations by Wired, Brooke Erin Duffy examines the sexism and financial precocity that pervades the social media influencer economy, and Sara Wachter-Boettcher digs into tech’s many head-scratching oversights (maybe you don’t want your scale to congratulate you via app notification every time you drop a pound!). Meanwhile, Trebor Scholz and Nathan Schneider envision a fairer, brighter future of the internet, and Jason Fagone highlights the accomplishments of a woman codebreaker whose work went for decades largely unacknowledged—still an unfortunate reality for many women in tech today.
This batch of selections also includes Erik Malinowski’s look at how the Golden State Warriors used Silicon Valley-style thinking to skyrocket themselves to greatness, and Zeynep Tufekci’s exploration of how digital technologies are reshaping protests. Check out our second set of recommendations for historical deep dives into the Valley’s past, as well as, yes, a few more ruminations on technology’s detrimental effects on our lives. Just in time for you to actually read as many books as you swore you would in 2017.
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