The secret to Silicon Valley’s success is mass delusion, says ‘Chaos Monkeys’ author

Antonio García-Martinez knows that his new book about Silicon Valley, "Chaos Monkeys," is making some people mad. The tell-all tale about his stab at the startup world, including a $10 million acquisition by Twitter and high drama inside the walls of Facebook, was conceived and written to be meaner than most books by techies.

"The book isn’t nice because Silicon Valley isn’t a nice place," García-Martinez said on the latest episode of Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher. "That’s the reality."

In "Chaos Monkeys," he writes that Silicon Valley loves to lie to itself about everything from what politics it believes in to how employees fare when founders and investors score a big exit. García-Martinez called out critics such as investor Brad Feld who have dinged his book for lacking optimism.

"It’s kind of like criticizing a war novel for not having enough patriotism," he said. "I wonder what they’d say if they read ‘All Quiet on the Western Front.’"

He acknowledged, however, that Silicon Valley’s cult of optimism works. The bubble has not popped (at least not yet) and there’s good reason to credit today’s tech industry with having a profound impact on the world, even if it’s not always honest with itself about the harm it might do as well, he added.

"To be a success, you have to seem a success," García-Martinez said. "Everyone is always killing it, every graph is up and to the right. The Silicon Valley vibe is like democracy, or religion: If everyone believes in it, it sort of becomes true."

He was careful to contrast "Chaos Monkeys" with another juicy tech tell-all — Dan Lyons’s account of working at HubSpot, "Disrupted." García Martinez said Lyons was a "universal troll," slamming everything about Silicon Valley, whereas he wound up having nice things to say about a handful of folks, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Y Combinator’s Paul Graham and Sam Altman.

You can listen to Recode Decode in the audio player above, or subscribe on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher.

If you like this show, you should also sample our other podcasts:

• Recode Media with Peter Kafka features no-nonsense conversations with the smartest and most interesting people in the media world, with new episodes every Thursday. Use these links to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher.
• Too Embarrassed to Ask, hosted by Kara Swisher and The Verge's Lauren Goode, answers the tech questions sent in by our readers and listeners. You can hear new episodes every Friday on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher.
• And Recode Replay has all the audio from our live events, including the Code Conference, Code Media and the Code Commerce Series. We've posted audio of every single interview at the 2016 Code Conference, so subscribe today on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher.

If you like what we’re doing, please write a review on iTunes — and if you don’t, just tweet-strafe Kara. Tune in next Monday for another episode of Recode Decode!

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

We have a request

Vox's journalism is free because we believe that everyone deserves to understand the world that they live in. That kind of knowledge helps create better citizens, neighbors, friends, parents, consumers and stewards of this planet. In short, understanding benefits everyone. You can join in on this mission by making a financial gift to Vox today. Reader support helps keep our work free, for everyone. Will you join us?

One-Time Monthly Annual

$95/year

$120/year

$250/year

$350/year

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $120/year

Yes, I'll give $120/year

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via