Book Talk: Don’t Be Evil by Rana Foroohar

Wednesday Jan 08, 2020
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

POWERHOUSE Arena
28 Adams Street (Corner of Adams & Water Street across from the Archway)
Brooklyn , NY 11201

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About the Book.

A penetrating indictment of how today’s largest tech companies are hijacking our data, our livelihoods, our social fabric, and our minds—from an acclaimed Financial Times columnist and CNN analyst

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY EVENING STANDARD

“Don’t be evil” was enshrined as Google’s original corporate mantra back in its early days, when the company’s cheerful logo still conveyed the utopian vision for a future in which technology would inevitably make the world better, safer, and more prosperous. Unfortunately, it’s been quite a while since Google, or the majority of the Big Tech companies, lived up to this founding philosophy. Today, the utopia they sought to create is looking more dystopian than ever: from digital surveillance and the loss of privacy to the spreading of misinformation and hate speech to predatory algorithms targeting the weak and vulnerable to products that have been engineered to manipulate our desires.

How did we get here? How did these once-scrappy and idealistic enterprises become rapacious monopolies with the power to corrupt our elections, co-opt all our data, and control the largest single chunk of corporate wealth—while evading all semblance of regulation and taxes? In Don’t Be Evil, Financial Times global business columnist Rana Foroohar tells the story of how Big Tech lost its soul—and ate our lunch.

Through her skilled reporting and unparalleled access—won through nearly thirty years covering business and technology—she shows the true extent to which behemoths like Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon are monetizing both our data and our attention, without us seeing a penny of those exorbitant profits.

Finally, Foroohar lays out a plan for how we can resist, by creating a framework that fosters innovation while also protecting us from the dark side of digital technology.

Praise for Don’t Be Evil

“At first sight, Don’t Be Evil looks like it’s doing for Google what muckraking journalist Ida Tarbell did for Standard Oil over a century ago. But this whip-smart, highly readable book’s scope turns out to be much broader. Worried about the monopolistic tendencies of big tech? The addictive apps on your iPhone? The role Facebook played in Donald Trump’s election? Foroohar will leave you even more worried, but a lot better informed.”—Niall Ferguson, Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford, and author of The Square and the Tower

About The Author.

Rana Foroohar is global business columnist and associate editor for the Financial Times. She is also CNN’s global economic analyst. Her new book, “Don’t Be Evil: How Big Tech Betrayed Its Founding Principles – and All of Us,” was released by Crown in November 2019. Her previous book, “Makers and Takers: How Wall Street Destroyed Main Street,” was shortlisted for the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year award in 2016.Foroohar was named best large publication columnist of 2019 by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers for her technology and policy writing. She is also the 2019 winner of the Arthur Ross Award given by the American Academy of Diplomacy for foreign affairs writing.

Previously, Foroohar was the assistant managing editor in charge of business and economics at Time, as well as the magazine’s economic columnist. She also spent 13 years at Newsweek, as an economic and foreign affairs editor and a foreign correspondent covering Europe and the Middle East. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, the writer John Sedgwick, and her two children.

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