“About one out of every six search queries in Google have never been asked before. Google gets 3.5 Billion search queries every day, learns from us to teach us.”
1. What’s the deal?
The book attempts to deconstruct how The Four have exploited their power and consumer habits to become intractable, almost despotic, industrial giants of the modern world.
In a certain sense, the book claims to be an exposé on the poor conscience of Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook. Examples:
“Jobs used his Hollywood muscle to force an overreaction on audio download piracy[…].”
“Apple is also known to send its money to tax heavens – so every dollar of profit is valued tremendously.”
“Anything that tries to threaten Facebook, Facebook acquires it. Instagram – $1 Bn; WhatsApp $20 Bn.”
2. Things we liked
The writing is fascinating beyond words — it is so fast-paced it feels like you are reading a thriller.
The book contains exciting trivia and anecdotes — plenty of wow-inducing dopamine hits.
The author wakes you up to the evil side of these companies while, at the same time, acknowledging their massive contribution to making this world a better place (mainly through technology).
3. How much did we like them?
4. Things we didn’t like
The book sensationalises the evil side of The Four to a point where it feels it is pandering to the human instinct of enjoying the faults in others.
And since pandering (profiting from the weakness of others) is the very thing the book claims to be exposing, this feature is a bit disconcerting.
5. How much did we dislike them?
6. You are likely to enjoy it if…
You like the “Scary Tech” books such as Algorithms of oppression (Safiya Umoja Noble),Everybody lies (Seth Stephens-Davidowitz), and Irresistible (Adam Atler).
You like the exposé books such as Zucked (Roger McNamee).
You find some non-fiction fascinating but have mostly been unable to get around to reading them (find them overwhelming).
You enjoy an overly authoritative tone in writing (like that of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, for example).
7. You may not like it if…
You enjoy more submissive tonality in books (Stuffocation by James Wallman)
You have read several books uncovering the hidden agendas of the big tech companies.
"Apple has 492 stores across 19 countries - “all glass boxes” - intentionally made so for the people inside to feel cool and sexy and the people outside jealous and aspiring."
