Chaos Monkeys - Revised Edition

Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley

By: Antonio Garcia Martinez

Narrated by: Dan John Miller

Length: 16 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

The instant New York Times best seller, now featuring a new afterword from the author - the insider's guide to the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, the inner workings of the tech world, and who really runs Silicon Valley.

Imagine a chimpanzee rampaging through a datacenter powering everything from Google to Facebook. Infrastructure engineers use a software version of this “chaos monkey” to test Online services’ robustness - their ability to survive random failure and correct mistakes before they actually occur. Tech entrepreneurs are society’s chaos monkeys. One of Silicon Valley’s most audacious chaos monkeys is Antonio García Martínez.

After stints on Wall Street and as CEO of his own startup, García Martínez joined Facebook’s nascent advertising team. Forced out in the wake of an internal product war over the future of the company’s monetization strategy, García Martínez eventually landed at rival Twitter. In Chaos Monkeys, this gleeful contrarian unravels the chaotic evolution of social media and online marketing and reveals how it is invading our lives and shaping our future.

©2016, 2018 Antonio Garcia Martinez (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

“Incisive... The most fun business book I have read this year... Clearly there will be people who hate this book - which is probably one of the things that makes it such a great read.” (Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times)

amazing book

Antonio is a great writer. Very fun and fascinating. Must read for people who live in silicon valley

Brutally Honest

Great insight into the Silicon Valley scene, start-up life and Facebook. Very entertaining and informative. Highly recommended.

The book is awesome however ...

I really like the ability in audible to increase the speed of the narration, however as I learned from this audio book it doesn’t work for all narraters. Wish there were different narraters to select from.

Spot on inside look at the tech industry

His honest view of the American tech industry, using indentured foreign Visa workers... spot on.
How caste influenced people eventually kill American companies.

Chaos Monkeys - Liars Poker for Silicon Valley

Excellent listen/read…entertaining and informative regarding FB, Twitter and Silicon Valley start-ups though a bit over the top on the importance of FB to society.

Best audio book I’ve listened to in a while!

Really loved the book. Narration was great, loved the unflinching honesty. Really recommend it . Probably will listen to again !

Absolutely awesome

I had an amazing time listening to this book, its funny, interesting, cynical and insightful. I think that people from the tech world will enjoy it more then others. Found so much to relate to.

Exquisite Escapade Enveloping Entrepreneurship

While I bought the physical 📖 at a library sale in Los Altos, I barely cracked the cover. When Antonio (who does not sound like Pus In 👢 from Shreck) was let go by 🍎 because 🍎 apparently couldn't find and read this international best selling book before hiring Antonio, I decided to buy his audiobook so I could listen to it as I pedaled to work. Having lived in Silicon Valley from my birth at Stanford to high school graduation, I must say Antonio's biography is accurate or even a cleaned up view of Silicon Valley life. The audiobook was extremely excellent. Please buy it ASAP!

Must Read

it was a great book, especially if your in the startup world either past, present or future. Loved the authors prospective and humor

“Liar’s Poker” version of “HP Way”

Quibble with Antonio claim(?) that SiliconValley does not write its own history - HP co-founder Dave Packard wrote the autobiography of HP “The HP Way”; albeit without the sex drugs and alcohol described in “Chaos Monkeys”. Likewise Andy Grove wrote two books about SiliconValley - “High Output Management” and “Only the Paranoid Survive” (again without sex drugs and alcohol ☹️☹️☹️). Otherwise, an Antonio has written an outstanding autobiography of his hero’s journey from the mortgage meltdown wreckage of GoldmanSachs to the post-Election2016 myth busting of Facebook specifically and social media generally swinging the Election. Along the way, you will learn that Internet advertising is still in the shadow of direct Mail advertisers (eg crawl-space attic clean out contractors keep advertising and I keep saving their inserts ?!?!). Strongly recommend reading/listening if you have the startup, entrepreneur, venture capital, Angel investor, advertising, SaaS itch.