My favorite books about Silicon Valley: sex, power, technology and ambition

List by Olivia Alder

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve worked in technology for more than a decade, living and working in Silicon Valley, where ideas that sound futuristic can feel inevitable and only a heartbeat away. It can sometimes feel strange, being surrounded by people building the next big thing while still wondering what any of it will actually mean for people, relationships, and society.

That tension is why I write near-future fiction. I love books with big ideas, but I also want heat, romance, ambition, and messy human choices. I’m drawn to stories that bring those worlds together—and ask what happens when the future arrives before we’ve figured out what it means for us.

The books I picked & why

Careless People

By Sarah Wynn-Williams ,

Why I love this book

I devoured this book.

Yes, it’s nonfiction, but it has everything I love about great Silicon Valley fiction: big tech insider energy, corporate absurdity, bizarre culture, powerful people behaving badly, and the feeling that the decisions being made inside an office might eventually affect everyone outside it.

It’s sharp, wildly entertaining, and exactly the kind of tech-industry drama I’d happily take to the beach.

Careless People

By Sarah Wynn-Williams ,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked Careless People as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

#1 New York Times Bestseller

A 2025 best book of the year so far by The New York Times, The Economist, NPR, and more

“Careless People is darkly funny and genuinely shocking...Not only does [Sarah Wynn-Williams] have the storytelling chops to unspool a gripping narrative; she also delivers the goods." -Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times

“When one of the world's most powerful media companies tries to snuff out a book ― amid other alarming attacks on free speech in America like this ― it's time to pull out all the stops.” –Ron Charles, The Washington Post

An explosive memoir…

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The One

By John Marrs ,

Book cover of The One

Why I love this book

What I liked about The One is how it takes an irresistible technological promise and follows it into unsettling territory: what if science could tell you exactly who you were meant to be with? Sounds romantic and impossible to resist—which is what makes the consequences so creepy.

I love stories where technology doesn’t just control people from the outside, but changes their choices, relationships, and desires. That tension is very close to what interested me in writing my book: if a system can tell you who you want, how much of wanting them still belongs to you?

The One

By John Marrs ,

What is this book about?

NOW A MAJOR NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES

HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO TO FIND THE ONE?

A No. 1 ebook bestseller and featured on Simon Mayo's Radio 2 book club. Perfect for fans of BEHIND HER EYES and BLACK MIRROR. From author of THE PASSENGERS and soon to be published THE FAMILY EXPERIMENT!

One simple mouth swab is all it takes. A quick DNA test to find your perfect partner - the one you're genetically made for.

A decade after scientists discover everyone has a gene they share with just one other person, millions have taken the test, desperate to find…

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The Startup Wife

By Tahmima Anam ,

Why I love this book

I love fiction that understands how intoxicating tech culture can be.

The Startup Wife captures technology, ambition, relationships, and founder worship in a way that is funny, sharp, and painfully recognizable. What resonated with me most was the way it explores how love can make ambitious women voluntarily surrender power—sometimes without realizing how much they’ve given away until it’s already gone.

That’s one of the places it overlaps with my book: both books satirize tech culture while still taking seriously the consequences of the products being built, and the human relationships tangled up in them.

The Startup Wife

By Tahmima Anam ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Startup Wife as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Selected as a Best Book of 2021 by the Observer, Stylist, Cosmopolitan, Red and the Daily Mail

Halfway through her PhD and already dreaming of running her own lab, computer scientist Asha has her future all mapped out. Then a chance meeting and whirlwind romance with her old high-school crush, Cyrus, changes everything.

Dreaming big, together with their friend Jules they come up with a revolutionary idea: to build a social networking app that could bring meaning to millions of lives. While Asha creates an ingenious algorithm, Cyrus' charismatic appeal throws him into the spotlight.

When the app explodes into…

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The Circle

By Dave Eggers , #1 of The Circle series

Why I love this book

I love how this book told the story of technology that feels only slightly ahead of reality.

I was working at Google at the time that I read this, and what resonated with me was the enormous amounts of data being collected, the optimism around what that data could enable, and the subtle ways algorithms were already beginning to shape human behavior.

It made me start thinking about where those nudges could ultimately lead. And it’s not just the amount of data being collected, but how willingly people embrace it when the experience is good enough, and it comes beautifully packaged.

That’s a similar idea I explore in my book: how much control we willingly hand over to our technology overlords in exchange for free email, better-targeted advertising, and a little more convenience.

The Circle

By Dave Eggers ,

Why should I read it?

12 authors picked The Circle as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE starring Tom Hanks, Emma Watson and John Boyega

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - a dark, thrilling and unputdownable novel about our obsession with the internet

'Prepare to be addicted' Daily Mail

'A gripping and highly unsettling read' Sunday Times

'The Circle is 'Brave New World' for our brave new world... Fast, witty and troubling' Washington Post

When Mae is hired to work for the Circle, the world's most powerful internet company, she feels she's been given the opportunity of a lifetime. Run out of a sprawling California campus, the Circle links users' personal emails,…

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Annie Bot

By Sierra Greer ,

Why I love this book

I’m fascinated by the ways AI and intimacy are becoming intertwined.

We already trust AI with our deepest thoughts, questions, and secrets. Increasingly, people are forming intimate relationships with this software that knows them so well. The more it learns about us, and the better it becomes at anticipating what we want, the more complicated our ideas about desire, consent, and control become.

Like my book, Annie Bot asks whether a choice can truly be yours if someone (or something) has been designed to shape it. If technology can influence or even manufacture desire, what does consent look like?

Annie Bot

By Sierra Greer ,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Annie Bot as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Provocative...a Frankenstein for the digital age...a rich text about power, autonomy, and what happens when our creations outgrow us." — Esquire

"Unexpected and subtle...delicious and thought-provoking." — New Scientist

For fans of Never Let Me Go and My Dark Vanessa, a powerful, provocative novel about the relationship between a female robot and her human owner, exploring questions of intimacy, power, autonomy, and control.

Annie Bot was created to be the perfect girlfriend for her human owner Doug. Designed to satisfy his emotional and physical needs, she has dinner ready for him every night, wears the pert outfits he orders for…

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