Activity

At the analytics startup, we never once talked about the whistleblower, not even during happy hour. In general, we rarely discussed the news, and we certainly weren’t about to start with this story. We didn’t think of ourselves as participating in the surveillance economy. We weren’t thinking about…

“There’s no menu, so you can’t just order, you know, a martini,” the engineer told me, as if I would ever. “You tell the bartender three adjectives, and he’ll customize a drink for you accordingly. I’ve been thinking about my adjectives all day.” What was it like to be fun, I wondered—what was it l…

The tool should have been straightforward. It was, in theory, simple enough to be used by a marketing manager. At least, that’s what my coworkers said—a blessing upon modern software. For years, the catchphrase had been So easy, your mother could use it, but this had grown uncouth and politically…

Even so, the enemy of a successful startup was complacency. To combat this, the CEO liked to instill fear. He was not a formidable physical presence—he had gelled, spiky hair; he was slight; he often wore a green jacket indoors, presumably to fight the chill—but he could scare the hell out of us. H…

Our team was penned off in a corner of the office, at a cluster of tables marked with a sign that read SOLUTIONS ZONE. I stood in the Zone and felt powerful. Because the products of our labor were intangible, meeting customers felt amazing—validating. They approached, gave us their company names, a…