Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"Disrupted by Dan Lyons is the best book about Silicon Valley today."---Los Angeles Times

"Hysterical."---Kara Swisher, Recode

"Wildly entertaining."---Ashlee Vance, New York Times-bestselling author of Elon Musk

For twenty-five years Dan Lyons was a magazine writer at the top of his profession--until one Friday morning when he received a phone call: Poof. His job no longer existed. "I think they just want to hire younger people," his boss at Newsweek told him. Fifty years old and with a wife and two young kids, Dan was, in a word, screwed. Then an idea hit. Dan had long reported on Silicon Valley and the tech explosion. Why not join it? HubSpot, a Boston start-up, was flush with $100 million in venture capital. They offered Dan a pile of stock options for the vague role of "marketing fellow." What could go wrong?

HubSpotters were true believers: They were making the world a better place ... by selling email spam. The office vibe was frat house meets cult compound: The party began at four thirty on Friday and lasted well into the night; "shower pods" became hook-up dens; a push-up club met at noon in the lobby, while nearby, in the "content factory," Nerf gun fights raged. Groups went on "walking meetings," and Dan's absentee boss sent cryptic emails about employees who had "graduated" (read: been fired). In the middle of all this was Dan, exactly twice the age of the average HubSpot employee, and literally old enough to be the father of most of his co-workers, sitting at his desk on his bouncy-ball "chair."

Mixed in with Lyons's uproarious tale of his rise and fall at Hubspot is a trenchant analysis of the start-up world, a de facto conspiracy between those who start companies and those who fund them, a world where bad ideas are rewarded with hefty investments, where companies blow money lavishing perks on their post-collegiate workforces, and where everybody is trying to hang on just long enough to reach an IPO and cash out.

With a cast of characters that includes devilish angel investors, fad-chasing venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and "wantrapreneurs," bloggers and brogrammers, social climbers and sociopaths, Disrupted is a gripping and definitive account of life in the (second) tech bubble.
1122451147
Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"Disrupted by Dan Lyons is the best book about Silicon Valley today."---Los Angeles Times

"Hysterical."---Kara Swisher, Recode

"Wildly entertaining."---Ashlee Vance, New York Times-bestselling author of Elon Musk

For twenty-five years Dan Lyons was a magazine writer at the top of his profession--until one Friday morning when he received a phone call: Poof. His job no longer existed. "I think they just want to hire younger people," his boss at Newsweek told him. Fifty years old and with a wife and two young kids, Dan was, in a word, screwed. Then an idea hit. Dan had long reported on Silicon Valley and the tech explosion. Why not join it? HubSpot, a Boston start-up, was flush with $100 million in venture capital. They offered Dan a pile of stock options for the vague role of "marketing fellow." What could go wrong?

HubSpotters were true believers: They were making the world a better place ... by selling email spam. The office vibe was frat house meets cult compound: The party began at four thirty on Friday and lasted well into the night; "shower pods" became hook-up dens; a push-up club met at noon in the lobby, while nearby, in the "content factory," Nerf gun fights raged. Groups went on "walking meetings," and Dan's absentee boss sent cryptic emails about employees who had "graduated" (read: been fired). In the middle of all this was Dan, exactly twice the age of the average HubSpot employee, and literally old enough to be the father of most of his co-workers, sitting at his desk on his bouncy-ball "chair."

Mixed in with Lyons's uproarious tale of his rise and fall at Hubspot is a trenchant analysis of the start-up world, a de facto conspiracy between those who start companies and those who fund them, a world where bad ideas are rewarded with hefty investments, where companies blow money lavishing perks on their post-collegiate workforces, and where everybody is trying to hang on just long enough to reach an IPO and cash out.

With a cast of characters that includes devilish angel investors, fad-chasing venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and "wantrapreneurs," bloggers and brogrammers, social climbers and sociopaths, Disrupted is a gripping and definitive account of life in the (second) tech bubble.
9.99 In Stock
Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble

Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble

by Dan Lyons
Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble

Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble

by Dan Lyons

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Overview

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"Disrupted by Dan Lyons is the best book about Silicon Valley today."---Los Angeles Times

"Hysterical."---Kara Swisher, Recode

"Wildly entertaining."---Ashlee Vance, New York Times-bestselling author of Elon Musk

For twenty-five years Dan Lyons was a magazine writer at the top of his profession--until one Friday morning when he received a phone call: Poof. His job no longer existed. "I think they just want to hire younger people," his boss at Newsweek told him. Fifty years old and with a wife and two young kids, Dan was, in a word, screwed. Then an idea hit. Dan had long reported on Silicon Valley and the tech explosion. Why not join it? HubSpot, a Boston start-up, was flush with $100 million in venture capital. They offered Dan a pile of stock options for the vague role of "marketing fellow." What could go wrong?

HubSpotters were true believers: They were making the world a better place ... by selling email spam. The office vibe was frat house meets cult compound: The party began at four thirty on Friday and lasted well into the night; "shower pods" became hook-up dens; a push-up club met at noon in the lobby, while nearby, in the "content factory," Nerf gun fights raged. Groups went on "walking meetings," and Dan's absentee boss sent cryptic emails about employees who had "graduated" (read: been fired). In the middle of all this was Dan, exactly twice the age of the average HubSpot employee, and literally old enough to be the father of most of his co-workers, sitting at his desk on his bouncy-ball "chair."

Mixed in with Lyons's uproarious tale of his rise and fall at Hubspot is a trenchant analysis of the start-up world, a de facto conspiracy between those who start companies and those who fund them, a world where bad ideas are rewarded with hefty investments, where companies blow money lavishing perks on their post-collegiate workforces, and where everybody is trying to hang on just long enough to reach an IPO and cash out.

With a cast of characters that includes devilish angel investors, fad-chasing venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and "wantrapreneurs," bloggers and brogrammers, social climbers and sociopaths, Disrupted is a gripping and definitive account of life in the (second) tech bubble.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780316306072
Publisher: Hachette Books
Publication date: 04/05/2016
Sold by: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format: eBook
Sales rank: 302,192
File size: 1 MB

About the Author

Dan Lyons is a novelist, journalist, and screenwriter. He is currently a co-producer and -writer for the HBO series Silicon Valley. Previously, Lyons was technology editor at Newsweek and the creator of the groundbreaking viral blog "The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs" (AKA "Fake Steve Jobs"). Lyons has written for the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Vanity Fair, and Wired. He lives in Winchester, MA.

Table of Contents

Author's Note vii

Prologue: Welcome to the Content Factory 1

Chapter 1 Beached White Male 11

Chapter 2 When the Ducks Quack 20

Chapter 3 What's a Hub Spot? 30

Chapter 4 The Happy!! Awesome!! Start-Up Cult 39

Chapter 5 HubSpeak 49

Chapter 6 Our Cult Leader Has a Really Awesome Teddy Bear 63

Chapter 7 We Need to Make the Blog a Lot More Dumberer 69

Chapter 8 The Bozo Explosion 77

Chapter 9 In Which I Make a Very Big Mistake 89

Chapter 10 Life in the Boiler Room 96

Chapter 11 OMG the Halloween Party!!! 105

Chapter 12 The New Work: Employees as Widgets 113

Chapter 13 The Ron Burgundy of Tech 128

Chapter 14 Meet the New Boss 138

Chapter 15 Grandpa Buzz 143

Chapter 16 Ritual Humiliation as Rehabilitation 160

Chapter 17 A Disturbance in the Farce 164

Chapter 18 A House of Cards? 172

Chapter 19 Go West, Old Man 177

Chapter 20 Glassholes 183

Chapter 21 Excuse Me, but Would You Please Get the Fuck Out of Our Company? 192

Chapter 22 Inbound and Down 202

Chapter 23 Escape Velocity 220

Chapter 24 If I Only Had a Heart 225

Chapter 25 Graduation Day 234

Epilogue 241

Acknowledgments 259

What People are Saying About This

Ashlee Vance

Using his trademark wit and clear-eyed analysis, Dan Lyons has delivered a much-needed referendum on the current state of Silicon Valley. In wildly entertaining fashion, Disrupted explores the ways in which many technology companies have come to fool the public and themselves. Lyons has injected a dose of sanity into a world gone mad. --Ashlee Vance, New York Times-bestselling author of Elon Musk

Nick Bilton

Dan Lyons goes deep inside a company that uses terms like "world class marketing thought leaders" to show us how ridiculous, wasteful, and infantile tech start-ups like this can be. And best of all, Lyons does this with his trademark pejorative and hilarious tone. --Nick Bilton, New York Times technology columnist

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