Anna Wiener on her book “Uncanny Valley”
It&#x27;s interesting. She sounds like a pro writer. I wonder if her four years were really research for a planned book. That kind of thing is very common. If so, it&#x27;s paid off. She&#x27;s hot news, right now. Being exec producer on a movie before the book is even out, is sort of...Silicon Valley.<p>My own perspective is kinda weird, and I don&#x27;t pretend to be an expert in the culture.<p>I started programming in 1983, with machine code, and I&#x27;ve been doing this stuff a very long time. As I look around at folks in the industry, I see that it is a <i>very</i> long time, indeed. There&#x27;s not many people with the length of time in the industry I have (which is not necessarily something that has been beneficial to me).<p>I spent most of my career at a top-shelf Japanese corporation. It was a frustrating, but also awesome, experience that has almost no analogue at all with Silicon Valley culture. It was basically a &quot;silo.&quot;<p>After leaving that company a couple of years ago, I have been acclimating to a vastly changed landscape. It&#x27;s been rather eye-opening.<p>The one thing that has struck me the most, is that money seems to have become rather corrosive, while also energizing. It powers a lot of growth, innovation and energy, but also brings with it an almost complete moral vacuum. The Japanese corporation had many flaws, but I was impressed by their focus on teamwork and almost insanely high ethical standards (It was a very &quot;old-fashioned&quot; company). I regularly worked (and argued) with some of the most brilliant scientists and engineers in the world.<p>I like the energy, and I think some of the tools and techniques that have developed are really nice, but I have been rather taken aback by the manner in which our culture is expressed, these days. It&#x27;s very different from the rather &quot;scrappy&quot; and hopeful way we thought about things back when.<p>I&#x27;m figuring out how to navigate the new world. I need to learn how to work in the fast-paced, cutthroat culture, while holding to my ethical compass, and my workflow.