We are in new york city. Weve a book coming out in january of 2020. What do you do now for a living and how did you get there. Im currently writing fulltime im a contributing writer. I got there it was just my ten year reunion. I did not attend. With a degree in sociology. We have the good fortune to walk straight into that. After the internship working in music for a while i do Literary Agency for a few years. After that joined a startup that was doing a netflix for ebooks. I was supposed to be the person that knew about books. I thought it would be a great application of my sociology degree. Thats exactly what they were looking for. I did that for 18 months which was probably the longest 18 months of my life from there went to build the open Source Software development. Did you come back to new york. I only left the industry in 2018. Ive been writing about it for a little while and then it reached a point where it seemed like i could no longer do both. So i last left last february. You and i have a fragile but agreeable life. A job as an assistant. The smattering by whom i exercise my social anxiety primarily by avoiding the at a time when a Chocolate Factory was considered a local landmark. And people spoke earnestly about urban home setting. Was that typical for people your age living in new york city. I dont think i can make a generalization about people my age. They come out about liberal arts college. Theyre into art, music and literature i live in greenpoint where there was a pretty vibrant culture and art scene in music scene technology was incidental. I think our world was way more it was a tangible physical world. You described publishing. I think publishing their really different. Often they require a lot of time to write and put them together slowly as the mention of the book. They just cannot want to see how it goes. These are really different approaches to product development. In so far as it is. The values that motivate that motivate both our there. I found it really intoxicating. It feels really good to see the products of your labor and realize it quickly and you can get kind of get in the feedback loop of working on something i do see it go. You can do that really quickly. What about publishing and technology. Is there a synergy there. In terms of how can it provide infrastructure for technology. Its hard to say. They havent really taken off the way they are expected to. In reading a reading is a big development. I dont really know the answer to that question. Its kind of hard to meet that specific technology. It was at the state of intellect. And i joined for Customer Support. What did you know about data analytics. Very close to nothing. I would say. I was later told that i was hired i thought there was one of the founders. He had been helping his girlfriend study. He was familiar with the task. They sort of figured that it would be the quantitative qualifying skills. I think theyre trying to figure out how you quantify everything. This seems like a useful tool for them. I think they saw that i was someone that likes to write. And i was willing to learn the Technology Side they also really needed someone to jump in. Its a good question. Been being the only woman on a nontechnical team providing Customer Support was like immersion therapy for internalized misogynist. Every day. Not just the only woman on a team of men. For me i was surrounded by male confidence. All of these young men who felt like they had been given the green light by society to do what they wanted to do and it was working. Things were moving really fast and i think for me it was an everyday struggle to just make sure that people were treating me fairly and as an equal and try not to left myself to feel that i was if something seemed off to me. Its a little hard to break that down. I know how it is to articulate it in a different way. Where technologist treated differently than the support staff . I think it is a culture that really values the engineering skill set. The market really values it obviously. It is a way that looking at the world that people really appreciate. The highlevel overview of how things work. In support as a nontechnical role. And you are dealing with peoples feelings and it can take a long time. Often dealing dealing with the user is tedious. Did you find that what you are learning and Silicon Valley would at some point be the new norm for business. I think a lot of companies are interested in having that startup i think that the future of work. I think theyre looking there to figure out how to organize the workplaces. I dont mean that in a union way. And how to keep up with this culture. The culture has really responded to the tech companies. For better and for worse. And i dont think its all bad. There is a lot that could be readily dismissed. That could be readily dismissed. The phrase is from is so realistic about something is off. You fall into this valley of eerie sensation in close to human but not quite right. As a how you felt when you are out there. I think it is described for the Emotional Experience in certain ways for sure. To benefit. Was that enough for survival. I have a rentcontrolled apartment still about a third of my paycheck. I didnt have anyone relying on me. I definitely wasnt was more than a surviving. I think anybody that lives in the city now making 65,000 a year is in for a more difficult time than i was. I think that it still exist. About the time that i was writing. They were really excited about big data. I think sometimes it they like to know whats going on. I have not realized how high up that fetish goes. But collecting data and that surveillance applications obviously. Like i think people like having information. The need someone its been affected by unknown entities. What could be can be done with all of the information. I think its all about marketing. On the internet is also about in any individual app. Theres a way for the company to make money. In ecommerce site might find in the way the amazon makes it incredibly easy they might make it as frictionless as possible to get peoples money. That would be pretty kosher application of user data i think it gets more frightening yet the Cell Phone Companies selling location data is not difficult to have the information. You also government surveillance that can be the target. Its culturally based just the minorities. It is sort of limit list. I think its kind of under gone everything. See mexico from new york city. Is it a Culture Shock to go to the other coast. I think that counterculture has a presence in San Francisco. I would say that the intellectual culture and dont think that i can speak about San Francisco because when i moved there my life was very claustrophobic. I was at the office. I wouldnt say i was a great cultural citizen. That was a phrase we used to refer to being committed to the company. If you stayed up till midnight working on a side project that was in your job responsibility that was just being all in for the company. The burke is called uncanny valley and we are talking to in a about it. The book is coming out in january 2020 is a long time. I did not make that decision but i think january is a good time. One of the things you write i have never seen such a shameful juxtaposition of absolute idealism. Anybody who has been to San Francisco in the last decade has probably seen this there is a growing homeless population. I find it very jarring. You walk downtown which is the neighborhood where a lot of the startups are in San Francisco and people will be sleeping on the streets you will see those that were really struggling with mental illness. You people that were building the future. They are being failed at the most basic level. It feels like whiplash. The very basic problems are all over the city. What is literally on their doorstep. Covering tech today. Do you get asked that about the tech companies. I had been really writing more about the culture of the industry i think a little bit im not really doing investigative journalism. Its less of an issue for me. I think they are excited to talk about what they are working on. Its a pretty secretive industry. I dont know. I do feel having gone from being a tech worker to writing about the Tech Industry the doors of power have closed on me. Im still very much pain attention to the ecosystem in the industry. Definitely the most intense. My work life. Do you still use all of the different websites that we all know i am a little bit more paranoid about what kind of a data i am sharing with apps and websites. And who gets to see that within those companies. Im immediately suspicious of it. Anything that is access to my favorite photos. I use ad blockers on everything except media websites. I Love Technology as a consumer in many ways. I do feel more aware of the uses of information and how it can happen. I feel very protective of my content on the internet. Im quite proud of the fact that if you googled me i have no pictures of my face on google. Ive managed to get away with from that for 20 years. I guess ive only been a little bit paranoid about the internet. Book tv is television for serious readers all weekend every weekend join us again next saturday beginning at 8 00 a. M. Eastern for the best and nonfiction books