Chaos Monkeys is a bargain, since you are really getting four books in one. First, our lucky reader is treated to a Sherman-style total war on the vanities and conceits of the tech elite. For the hater in all of us, it is uncompromised, savage delight. He particularly takes aim at noxious myth of meritocracy in the valley. As anywhere, those educated at the right places, and taught the right diction and manner of speaking rise to the top. For whatever reason, people in silicon valley seem to need reminding of this fairly often, perhaps more than most.
Another skewered vanity is that the work being done there is “changing the world.” The nirvana of being paid millions while doing meaningful work is the final privilege being sought by the waves of wall street refugees making their way out west. Only the most self-deluded really buy it, and as Antonio shows, those often happen to be working at the most influential and powerful companies. Is Facebook really changing the world? Without question, but when Facebook uses the language of historical figures, implicitly placing itself on the same podium as Cato the elder, say, it is both creepy and pathetic. Furthermore, the same gulf between the windfalls of the upper echelon and the rank-and-file is still present.
The second book is a detailed, unsparing deep-dive into the trenches of the ad tech industry. Just for that, it is worth reading if your job has any remote connection with selling online. You will come away with more awareness of how pixels convert to dollars. This theme occupies most of the second half of the book. If anything, the vivid metaphors he uses to describe the otherwise dull and esoteric details of identity matching and attribution will serve you well anytime you must summon a complete picture of this complex web in your head. Even non-specialists will find fascinating the descriptions of how private data is collected and sold, not to mention probably realizing they have been worried about the wrong kind of privacy violations.
Third, there is a marvelous how-to guide for aspiring entrepreneurs hidden between the diatribes. Antonio managed to meet many of the key players in the industry. His detailed accounts of many of these meetings (confrontations) offer a unique behind-the-scenes vantage which many manuals for silicon valley success avoid, so the authors can remain in good stead with the figures involved. In addition, there is another way that Chaos Monkeys serves as an excellent preview of what entrepreneurship entails. Other how-to books are so smitten with the idea of entrepreneur as Hero that they often fail to convey the tedium, anxiety and chaos that are most of the day-to-day realities for any entrepreneur. These other books mention that building a company is hard and stressful, but often seem shy to mention exactly why, beyond executing a bad idea, or a linear increase in working hours. In reality, the unspoken “hard” part of any startup is not the actual hours involved, or the idea, or execution, but rather the unwavering conviction you must have to keep at it when things are totally falling apart. The struggle to convince yourself, your investors and your customers that your vision of the world is the correct one is constant war against entropy, counterfactuals, competitors or self-doubts. Any of these must be swallowed, digested, shat out, and freeze-dried as more grist for your sales pitch mill. Every entrepreneur will immediately recognize what Antonio unabashedly portrays: the dreadful gulf between the inward awareness of all the chaos and flux at the startup, while preserving the outward image of polish, order and optimism. In fact, the delusion of performing world-changing work as an entrepreneur (even when you’re just building a s***ty analytics panel) is so pervasive, it cannot be solely attributed to narcissism. The book makes the point that this delusion is actually an emotional coping mechanism to endure the aforementioned doublethink on a daily basis.
Finally, we are given an intimate, unsentimental portrait of Antonio’s tortured psyche. While I wouldn’t necessarily advocate “praying for Antonio’s soul,” as a previous reviewer stated, his relentless self-deprecation and raw honesty balance out some of the selfish decisions he makes in the book. He is extremely well read, and I suspect this background informs a somewhat tragic theme of the book— for a certain type of person, the only hope that can lift the cynicism and misanthropy of early life disappointment is to undergo a meaningful quest with loyal companions. There aren’t many of those quests around anymore, unfortunately, nor is there a surfeit of loyal companions in the sort of places and professions that demand one’s full faculties. In the book, many characters and causes fail to meet this high bar, of course. I suspect more than a few failed idealists will find a kindred spirit in Antonio, despite the caustic tone throughout. That said, there is plenty here to be offended about, if that is your sort of thing. Some of the criticism is justified. For example, there is some objectification of women that could have been omitted. However, if that is your ONLY take-away, then you are precisely the sort of self-important, thin-skinned windbag that is rightfully skewered in Chaos Monkeys.
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Reviews with images
Best Real World Tech Scenarios
I liked the Real World scenarios, put up with arrogance, and admired the BALLS
Top reviews from other countries
Peter
Bought for the controversy, kept reading for the unique style
Reviewed in Canada on June 25, 2023
Peter
Reviewed in Canada on June 25, 2023
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Rupert Fiennes
A good impression of the Valley at a point in time
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 22, 2023
Daniel Afanador
If you are interested in Facebook, read this book!
Reviewed in Brazil on September 2, 2018