Fatal Abstraction

Fatal Abstraction is an electrifying and incisive book that offers an insider’s perspective on the tech industry…exposes the forces rotting the core of today’s tech industry: unchecked financialization that destroys innovation, eroding ethics, and declining user experience, all in a reckless pursuit of perpetual growth and market dominance.–Taylor Lorenz, author of Extremely Online and founder of User MagI read Fatal Abstraction in a single sitting, gripped by both fascination and a creeping sense of dread over just how badly things can go when tech executives are too unimaginative or distracted by profit to think through the real-world implications of their products. Darryl Campbell’s deeply researched book draws a clear line from notorious examples like Uber’s self-driving cars to lesser-known ones such as the Burmese military’s weaponization of Facebook in the Rohingya genocide. Most chilling of all is the chapter on PowerPoint, which Campbell argues is not just an easy-to-mock corporate tool, but a platform for dangerously oversimplified thinking or even outright propaganda. Campbell, a tech veteran himself, also offers a framework by which developers and other frontline tech workers can curb their bosses’ worst instincts. For the sake of my nervous system and the world’s well-being, I hope they will take up his challenge.–Kristi Coulter, author of Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious CareerFrom startups to Big Tech, self-driving cars to AI, the sky-high promises have been undercut by the industry’s reliance on rigid corporate structures. In Fatal Abstraction, Darryl Campbell combines reporting, research, and his personal experience working in tech to diagnose this fundamental problem–and its very human toll. Smart and often funny, Campbell’s book is rich with unsparing detail, and offers a glimpse into a widespread problem that is surprising and urgent.–Kevin Nguyen, author of My Documents and New Waves and features editor at The VergeIn Fatal Abstraction, Darryl Campbell makes the case that our safety and possibly our souls have been sold out to the combination of an ideology called managerialism and faulty software. He shows beyond a doubt that large corporations aren’t equipped to understand the dangers of technology, and suggests an alternative to managerialism that he says can stop Big Tech from creating another high-stakes disaster.–Cathy O’Neil, New York Times bestselling author of Weapons of Math Destruction and The Shame MachineIn the spirit of Bad Blood and The Accidental Billionaires, Darryl Campbell pulls back the curtain on the mythology of Big Tech as infallible and software as savior. He also shows how armies of ambivalent or powerless techies in the trenches may hold the power to change things.–Neal Thompson, author of The First Kennedys and A Curious Man

Darryl Campbell has worked at Amazon, Uber, Expedia, and Tinder, among other companies. His writing has appeared in The Verge, Vulture, and GQ. He lives in Dallas, Texas.