Don't Be Evil
How Big Tech Betrayed Its Founding Principles - and All of Us
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Don't Be Evil
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Narrated by:
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Rachel Fulginiti
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By:
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Rana Foroohar
About this listen
A penetrating indictment of how today’s largest tech companies are hijacking our data, our livelihoods, our social fabric, and our minds - from an acclaimed Financial Times columnist and CNN analyst.
Winner of the Porchlight Business Book Award
Named one of the Best Books of the Year by Foreign Affairs and Evening Standard
"Don’t be evil" was enshrined as Google’s original corporate mantra back in its early days, when the company’s cheerful logo still conveyed the utopian vision for a future in which technology would inevitably make the world better, safer, and more prosperous.
Unfortunately, it’s been quite a while since Google, or the majority of the Big Tech companies, lived up to this founding philosophy. Today, the utopia they sought to create is looking more dystopian than ever: from digital surveillance and the loss of privacy to the spreading of misinformation and hate speech to predatory algorithms targeting the weak and vulnerable to products that have been engineered to manipulate our desires.
How did we get here? How did these once-scrappy and idealistic enterprises become rapacious monopolies with the power to corrupt our elections, co-opt all our data, and control the largest single chunk of corporate wealth - while evading all semblance of regulation and taxes? In Don’t Be Evil, Financial Times global business columnist Rana Foroohar tells the story of how Big Tech lost its soul - and ate our lunch.
Through her skilled reporting and unparalleled access - won through nearly 30 years covering business and technology - she shows the true extent to which behemoths like Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon are monetizing both our data and our attention, without us seeing a penny of those exorbitant profits.
Finally, Foroohar lays out a plan for how we can resist, by creating a framework that fosters innovation while also protecting us from the dark side of digital technology.
Praise for Don’t Be Evil:
"At first sight, Don’t Be Evil looks like it's doing for Google what muckraking journalist Ida Tarbell did for Standard Oil over a century ago. But this whip-smart, highly readable book's scope turns out to be much broader. Worried about the monopolistic tendencies of big tech? The addictive apps on your iPhone? The role Facebook played in Donald Trump’s election? Foroohar will leave you even more worried, but a lot better informed." (Niall Ferguson, Milbank family senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford, and author of The Square and the Tower)
©2019 Rana Foroohar (P)2019 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“This book goes beyond the economic problems of market distortion and monopoly power and examines the broader implications for society of the untrammeled and under-regulated Silicon Valley companies. Foroohar demonstrates that while the creed ‘don’t be evil’ may have initially inspired the Silicon Valley giants, its principle has long been left behind.” (Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in economics)
“If journalism is the first rough draft of history, then we are most fortunate to have Rana Foroohar’s laser vision and trenchant business analysis turned on the tech giants and the gluttonous anti-democratic surveillance capitalism that is their most far-reaching innovation. Foroohar’s examination of Big Tech’s audacity, plunder, and self-dealing economics is a crucial contribution to the growing debate on how to constrain the dark power of the tech corporations, binding them to the real needs of people and society.” (Shoshana Zuboff, author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism and Professor Emerita at Harvard Business School)
“Rana Foroohar’s new book explains how Big Tech firms have moved permanently beyond the reach of tax laws by leveraging the same opaque financial wizardry and scale that big banks did before the financial crisis, while also exploiting information asymmetries that demote us from citizens to mere consumers. Her urgent message: ‘Yes, we really are living in the Matrix,’ and it’s time to rise up and resist our algorithmic overlords. This book shows us how.” (Cathy O’Neil, The New York Times best-selling author of Weapons of Math Destruction and CEO of ORCAA)
What listeners say about Don't Be Evil
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Bryan E. Canter
- 09-06-22
Very Good Investigational Journalism
The author demonstrates a significant political bias, however, the journalism is excellent. She raises a large number of issues that must be dealt with relating to public and private data and it’s monopoly control by the mega tech companies. She further proposes strategies to address the issues. This is an important contribution toward a topic that desperately needs to be the center of some heated national debate.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Brad
- 11-30-19
Outstanding
Very important and timely. Must read for anyone interested in Big Tech and the issues we face from their growing control of our economy and society.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- cm
- 11-23-22
Lol at all these sensitive trumpy reviews
Yes, Trump is inevitably mentioned in a book pertaining to the current American climate. While he is not praised as a some sort of mythological savior as these reviewers may have hoped, Ms. Faroohar’s mentions of him are brief and to the point. I would guess these reviews have much more to do with the reviewers being uncomfortable outside of their Fox News/Facebook cradle more than anything in the book itself.
If you’re upset at all about the current state of affairs in the world, this is a great place to start. These are huge issues that affect every aspect of our economy, our families, and our quality of life, and that is something you should be concerned about, regardless of where you land on the political spectrum.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Bryan
- 11-29-19
A Bit Disappointed
I read Rana Foroohar previous book, "Makers and Takers" (which was a great book) so my expectations for this book were a bit high. Overall, the book is well researched and written and it's pretty good, but it's not great. She tries to make sense of how the Big Tech companies are screwing over the public. I totally agree. The solution on how to deal with that is difficult to answer. Right now the Internet is like the "wild west" and no one really knows how to tame it. Rana Foroohar posits some ideas along the lines of the EU's regulations. I'm not so sure. I believe this requires a lot more thought. Nevertheless, I believe the book is a good start to having a national debate on how to reign in Big Tech. In addition, I was a bit disappointed with Rana's political bias (she's anti-Trump) inserted into the text. It would have been a much better book if she'd stayed politically neutral and just stuck to the facts and make a compelling argument (just like she did in Makers and Takers). So this book ends with a lot of unanswered questions.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Dave
- 10-14-20
Informative or apocalyptic
This book was extremely enlightening, but I almost regret being so precisely enlightened. It was a near-apocalyptic view of a dystopian consumer future. It confirmed some of my worst suspicions but also gave me nightmares. The only ray of sunshine was the flashlight beam that the author cast into the darkness occasionally, to show the possible way out of a dark destiny. And the exit depends on a lot of things that are not likely to happen. So, as I said, I almost regret being so well informed. Let’s hope the way out of that future is made easier by this awareness being implanted into our lawmakers and voters... before the exits close!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Don Sherman Hall
- 01-24-20
Tech Monopolies can be evil
Interesting topic and very thoughtful. It’s a little frightening to think about how much big tech seduces us and tries to control our lives. But books like this one can help us rally against these modern day monopolies.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Christopher Williams
- 09-20-20
Excellent
An excellent look into how big tech has failed us and what is needed to get started on fixing it.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- cesar
- 11-17-24
if you value your privacy this is for you
this book is a mine of good information about big tech and how they violate our privacy and get to play with us based on what they learn from us. I don't think it's a partisan book like many want to think, it makes mention of all political groups at play. please read and recommend to others.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
- CB
- 12-08-19
Good companion to Surveillance Capitalism
Good companion to Surveillance Capitalism ... a few years on. Fills in some important gaps.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Lynn Edward Scherer
- 12-01-19
A welcome break from the nonstop breaking news.
The book defines our current technology problems in away that is easy to understand.
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2 people found this helpful