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Product Description
From renowned tech writer Steven Levy, the complete history of one of America's most controversial and successful companies
Today, Facebook is nearly unrecognizable from the simple website Zuckerberg's first built from his dorm room in his Sophomore year. It has grown into a tech giant, the largest social media platform and one of the biggest companies in the world, with a valuation of more than $576 billion and almost 3 billion users. There is no denying the power and omnipresence of Facebook in daily life. And in light of recent controversies surrounding election-influencing fake news accounts, the handling of its users' personal data and growing discontent with the actions of its founder and CEO, never has the company been more central to the national conversation.
Based on years of exclusive reporting and interviews with Facebook's key executives and employees, including Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, Steven Levy's sweeping narrative digs deep into the whole story of the company that has changed the world and reaped the consequences.
About the Author
Steven Levy is senior editor and chief technology writer at Newsweek. He has also worked on many other magazines, including Macworld and New Jersey Monthly, where one of his assignments led him to discover Einstein's brain in a pathologist's office. His previous books include the bestselling Hackers , and Crypto , which won the grand eBook prize at the 2001 Frankfurt Book festival.
He lives in New York City and western Massachusetts with his wife, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Teresa Carpenter, and their son.
Industry Reviews
This absorbing book will inspire important conversations about big tech and privacy in the twenty-first century
Booklist
This fascinating book reveals the imperial ambitions of Facebook's founder
James Marriott The Sunday Times
A tour de force of access journalism
Natasha Singer The New York Times
Steven Levy is the founding guru of technology journalism
Brad Stone author of The Everything Store and The Upstarts
Levy's narrative is richly detailed, thanks to interviews with Facebookers past and present...His account of Zuckerberg's abbreviated Harvard tenure and Facebook's early years feel fresh, with plenty of colour that reminds you the HBO show Silicon Valley did not have to reach far for its satire
NPR.org
Comprehensive and captivating history
Wall Street Journal
Levy writes with verve... [he] is able to trace the origins of the Cambridge Analytica scheme to Facebook's disregard for the privacy concerns of the first users... He doesn't shy from asking the tough questions
Washington Post
Fresh, up-to-date and insiderish
The Economist
Levy portrays a tech company where no one is taking responsibility for what it has unleashed... The book closes with a recognition that Facebook is bulldozing ahead with new innovations - from Facebook dating to its Libra digital currency project - while Zuckerberg continues to shrug off any ethical queries about his past behaviour
Financial Times
