Book cover of What Tech Calls Thinking: An Inquiry into the Intellectual Bedrock of Silicon Valley

Book description

Adrian Daub's What Tech Calls Thinking is a lively dismantling of the ideas that form the intellectual bedrock of Silicon Valley. Equally important to Silicon Valley's world-altering innovation are the language and ideas it uses to explain and justify itself. And often, those fancy new ideas are simply old motifs…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked What Tech Calls Thinking as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This is one of my favourite tech criticism books. I love how each of the book’s chapters takes a word commonly used in Silicon Valley (and the associated international startup communities) - such as "failure," "disruption," "drop-out," and "content" and dives into the "intellectual bedrock" at the heart of the discourse which surrounds them.

Daub is a Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford - so his critical eye and vast knowledge of intellectual history swiftly pull apart the pseudo-intellectualism so many in the startup community use to justify their success and problematic behaviour.

I particularly valued the fact that it’s…

From Gemma's list on navigate technology hype.

If you love What Tech Calls Thinking...

Book cover of These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

Want books like What Tech Calls Thinking?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like What Tech Calls Thinking.

Browse books like What Tech Calls Thinking

Book cover of Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Climate Change
Book cover of The Innovation Delusion: How Our Obsession with the New Has Disrupted the Work That Matters Most
Book cover of Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,340

readers submitted
so far, will you?

📚 If you like What Tech Calls Thinking, you might also like...

Book cover of Foxfire in the Snow

Foxfire in the Snow by J.S. Fields,

It's a time of change, between magic and alchemy.

Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…

Book cover of The Main Gate

The Main Gate by Yvonne Kjorlien,

Dr. Elise Marquette has spent years burying the past—until the past refuses to stay buried.

Hired to join Earth’s first interstellar contact team, she hopes the vastness of space will finally offer distance from the ghosts of war and the wounds left by a mother who never let her be…

5 book lists we think you will like!