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Bit Tyrants: The Political Economy of Silicon Valley
If the stories they tell about themselves are to be believed, all of the tech giants—Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon—were built from the ground up through hard work, a few good ideas, and the entrepreneurial daring to seize an opportunity when it presented itself.
With searing wit and blistering commentary Bit Tyrants provides an urgent corrective to this froth of board room marketing copy that is so often passed off as analysis. For fans of corporate fairy-tales there are no shortage of official histories that celebrate the innovative genius of Steve Jobs, liberal commentators who fall over themselves to laude Bill Gates's selfless philanthropy, or politicians who will tell us to listen to Mark Zuckerberg for advice on how to protect our democracy from foreign influence.
In this highly unauthorized account of the Big Five's origins, Rob Larson sets the record straight, and in the process shreds every focus-grouped bromide about corporate benevolence he could get his hands on. Those readers unwilling to smile and nod as every day we become more dependent on our phones and apps to do our chores, our jobs, and our socializing can take heart as Larson provides us with maps to all the shallow graves, skeleton filled closets, and invective laced emails Big Tech left behind on its ascent to power. His withering analysis will help readers crack the code of the economic dynamics that allowed these companies to become near-monopolies very early on, and, with a little bit of luck, his calls for digital socialism might just inspire a viral movement for online revolution.
249 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 13, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
November 27, 2019
Tech takes a severe beating in Rob Larson’s Bit Tyrants. He wants to take readers “behind its playful, cutesy nerd façade.” First up, the big five companies, followed by major issues that affect them all. It’s a full frontal attack on pretty much everything there is to hate about Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google, which each get their own chapter. And there’s lots to hate.
The common factor at the bottom of all those companies seems to be totally rotten founders. From Zuckerberg back to Gates, they are tyrants, verbally whiplashing underlings, paying poorly (Facebook “earns” nearly $700,000 of pure profit per employee) while expecting excruciatingly long hours (“death marches”) at no additional pay. They are arrogant, loud, abusive, selfish, greedy, ignorant, wrong and are constantly skating the edge of legality. They take on mainly part-timers to avoid paying benefits, and use contractors and slave labor overseas to produce their beautiful appliances. It is capitalism at its finest.
At the other end, they’ve all benefited from network effects. The more people use the services, the more important the services become. So it’s not so much their own brilliance as the leverage that the internet offered all of them. Also, government giving them unregulated total freedom, and the companies leveraging all the infrastructure and common goods of the USA gave them an incomparable boost. They expanded all over the world and avoided paying taxes. And they’ve never looked back.
Well, Jeff Bezos looked back. Incredibly, the world’s richest man has claimed to have built everything himself, without acknowledging the public services like roads for example, to deliver all those Amazon smiley boxes. Larson says he doesn’t pass the laugh test on that. Bezos is the kind of beneficent boss who cut off all Amazon affiliates rather than collect sales taxes for the states because affiliates gave it nexus all over the country. Now he is busy crippling product reviews, the very thing that gave Amazon the killer advantage over brick and mortar stores. Today, you have to have purchased a product at full price and spent at least $50 in the past 12 months in order to post a review that won’t be put last. If you haven’t spent enough, you can’t even vote. Your friend, Jeff.
As for network effects, Larson quotes W. Bryan Arthur: “Laissez-faire gives no guarantee that the ‘superior’ technology will be the one that survives.” To which Larson adds: “These are painful admissions from economists, who usually admit to few flaws in the marketplace.” Steve Jobs, for his part, claimed all the innovations developed by government grants at military research labs were Apple’s own invention. Things like touchscreens, lithium batteries, micro hard drives and the mouse. These guys bashed government all the way to the bank.
As comprehensive as Bit Tyrants seems to be, Larson missed a huge factor – planned obsolescence, in which companies like Apple and Microsoft make your purchases worthless and less functional, nudging you to purchase new. And it’s not just planned obsolescence but forced obsolescence, for those who think they can live with less than perfect systems, the Apples and Microsofts of the world can make them shut down completely.
Let there be no doubt, this is not fair reporting. Larson comes out swinging and keeps swinging throughout the book. It often seems like he has a personal chip on his shoulder. But Larson is a left-leaning economist, and one should expect some level of this kind of prejudice from him. It’s labor vs management, the public good vs shareholder rights, overseas hoarding vs infrastructure needs at home.
But he takes it way too far. He uses phrases like “bullying douchebag CEOs.” He drops in descriptors like sleazy and jerk-off (and worse, but we needn’t go there). I don’t know what Larson thinks he has accomplished with this dramatic name-calling. Perhaps it’s just the Trump effect, but it will not endear him or his book to researchers or teachers, let alone lawyers who might otherwise cite it in their work. He must believe there is some sort of audience that will glom onto his book because of his “colorful” descriptions.
The book concludes very positively with organizing tactics for the public to take back what amounts to ownership from these companies. For example, getting the rights to their own data, outlawing cookies that follow them all over the internet, and other privacy-invading techniques these companies profit from – at users’ expense. None of them are corporate rights.
He points out that Mark Zuckerburg bought and tore down four large houses around his own, just to ensure his own privacy. This is of course laughable when his whole company is based on leveraging other people’s personal activities, from where they’re standing to what they’ve looked at, who they’re meeting up with, and what they’re purchasing at every moment of their lives.
One interesting tactic that would work is a users strike. If everyone stayed off say Facebook for one month, none of the ads would be seen, causing terrific revenue loss to the company and mistrust from its real customers – the advertisers. Compare this to the paltry billion dollar fines it pays out of its tens of billions in profits – just the cost of doing business, which it goes right back to. A users strike is probably in Facebook’s future.
So Bit Tyrants has its value, but is lessened by its pointlessly abusive language.
David Wineberg
The common factor at the bottom of all those companies seems to be totally rotten founders. From Zuckerberg back to Gates, they are tyrants, verbally whiplashing underlings, paying poorly (Facebook “earns” nearly $700,000 of pure profit per employee) while expecting excruciatingly long hours (“death marches”) at no additional pay. They are arrogant, loud, abusive, selfish, greedy, ignorant, wrong and are constantly skating the edge of legality. They take on mainly part-timers to avoid paying benefits, and use contractors and slave labor overseas to produce their beautiful appliances. It is capitalism at its finest.
At the other end, they’ve all benefited from network effects. The more people use the services, the more important the services become. So it’s not so much their own brilliance as the leverage that the internet offered all of them. Also, government giving them unregulated total freedom, and the companies leveraging all the infrastructure and common goods of the USA gave them an incomparable boost. They expanded all over the world and avoided paying taxes. And they’ve never looked back.
Well, Jeff Bezos looked back. Incredibly, the world’s richest man has claimed to have built everything himself, without acknowledging the public services like roads for example, to deliver all those Amazon smiley boxes. Larson says he doesn’t pass the laugh test on that. Bezos is the kind of beneficent boss who cut off all Amazon affiliates rather than collect sales taxes for the states because affiliates gave it nexus all over the country. Now he is busy crippling product reviews, the very thing that gave Amazon the killer advantage over brick and mortar stores. Today, you have to have purchased a product at full price and spent at least $50 in the past 12 months in order to post a review that won’t be put last. If you haven’t spent enough, you can’t even vote. Your friend, Jeff.
As for network effects, Larson quotes W. Bryan Arthur: “Laissez-faire gives no guarantee that the ‘superior’ technology will be the one that survives.” To which Larson adds: “These are painful admissions from economists, who usually admit to few flaws in the marketplace.” Steve Jobs, for his part, claimed all the innovations developed by government grants at military research labs were Apple’s own invention. Things like touchscreens, lithium batteries, micro hard drives and the mouse. These guys bashed government all the way to the bank.
As comprehensive as Bit Tyrants seems to be, Larson missed a huge factor – planned obsolescence, in which companies like Apple and Microsoft make your purchases worthless and less functional, nudging you to purchase new. And it’s not just planned obsolescence but forced obsolescence, for those who think they can live with less than perfect systems, the Apples and Microsofts of the world can make them shut down completely.
Let there be no doubt, this is not fair reporting. Larson comes out swinging and keeps swinging throughout the book. It often seems like he has a personal chip on his shoulder. But Larson is a left-leaning economist, and one should expect some level of this kind of prejudice from him. It’s labor vs management, the public good vs shareholder rights, overseas hoarding vs infrastructure needs at home.
But he takes it way too far. He uses phrases like “bullying douchebag CEOs.” He drops in descriptors like sleazy and jerk-off (and worse, but we needn’t go there). I don’t know what Larson thinks he has accomplished with this dramatic name-calling. Perhaps it’s just the Trump effect, but it will not endear him or his book to researchers or teachers, let alone lawyers who might otherwise cite it in their work. He must believe there is some sort of audience that will glom onto his book because of his “colorful” descriptions.
The book concludes very positively with organizing tactics for the public to take back what amounts to ownership from these companies. For example, getting the rights to their own data, outlawing cookies that follow them all over the internet, and other privacy-invading techniques these companies profit from – at users’ expense. None of them are corporate rights.
He points out that Mark Zuckerburg bought and tore down four large houses around his own, just to ensure his own privacy. This is of course laughable when his whole company is based on leveraging other people’s personal activities, from where they’re standing to what they’ve looked at, who they’re meeting up with, and what they’re purchasing at every moment of their lives.
One interesting tactic that would work is a users strike. If everyone stayed off say Facebook for one month, none of the ads would be seen, causing terrific revenue loss to the company and mistrust from its real customers – the advertisers. Compare this to the paltry billion dollar fines it pays out of its tens of billions in profits – just the cost of doing business, which it goes right back to. A users strike is probably in Facebook’s future.
So Bit Tyrants has its value, but is lessened by its pointlessly abusive language.
David Wineberg
July 28, 2020
4.5 stars, rounded down
this was one of those books that i slowed my reading of because i was enjoying it so much. it’s an incredibly accessible account of Big Tech-- the founders, their starts, and why they're not as incredible as they might appear. i would say the book's only flaw is the author’s abusive language at certain points. even when i agree with him, the insults do take me out of the book completely and make me feel as though i'm reading something on twitter.
i would still highly recommend it! especially to anyone who is still worshipping tech CEOs in 2020.
this was one of those books that i slowed my reading of because i was enjoying it so much. it’s an incredibly accessible account of Big Tech-- the founders, their starts, and why they're not as incredible as they might appear. i would say the book's only flaw is the author’s abusive language at certain points. even when i agree with him, the insults do take me out of the book completely and make me feel as though i'm reading something on twitter.
i would still highly recommend it! especially to anyone who is still worshipping tech CEOs in 2020.
October 26, 2021
I'm only 40% through so far - but already it's eye opening and fascinating.. A full review will follow once I'm finished.
Just a heads up - this book along with 9 other non-fiction ebooks, are available for free download until publisher Haymarket Books
https://www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/...
Just a heads up - this book along with 9 other non-fiction ebooks, are available for free download until publisher Haymarket Books
https://www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/...
April 26, 2025
Two takeaways from this book.
First, tech platforms are prone to monopolization due to “network effect.” Adding a user adds value. Google has by far the most user data among search engines so its algorithm provides the best results. So we use Google. So Google increases its information advantage. Facebook has 2 billion subscribers. You join Facebook. I want to socialize with you so I join Facebook. How would a startup compete?
Second, there is no basis for the myth that the tech zillionaires invented the technologies that have made them rich. All of the technologies that form the basis of the internet, the web, and desktop and mobile user interfaces were developed either by government funded research or by government organizations. It’s well known that the internet was invented by DARPA. The world wide web was invented at CERN. Wi—Fi was invented on behalf of the state of Hawaii. The GUI came from government funded work at Xerox. PARC. Google was developed at Stanford. And so forth. These facts should be top of mind when we hear idiots start bemoaning wasteful government spending on basic research.
The argument the book makes is that the internet is too important to be in the hands of a small group of profit driven monopolies under scant government oversight. You and I, as data, are the product that drives high tech networked products. We are bought and sold without our consent, or even our knowledge, and we have no share in the profits. To be honest, I hesitate to state more completely the thesis of the book because I don’t want an algorithm to sort me as a subversive. Dear algorithm, I didn’t write it; I only read it.
First, tech platforms are prone to monopolization due to “network effect.” Adding a user adds value. Google has by far the most user data among search engines so its algorithm provides the best results. So we use Google. So Google increases its information advantage. Facebook has 2 billion subscribers. You join Facebook. I want to socialize with you so I join Facebook. How would a startup compete?
Second, there is no basis for the myth that the tech zillionaires invented the technologies that have made them rich. All of the technologies that form the basis of the internet, the web, and desktop and mobile user interfaces were developed either by government funded research or by government organizations. It’s well known that the internet was invented by DARPA. The world wide web was invented at CERN. Wi—Fi was invented on behalf of the state of Hawaii. The GUI came from government funded work at Xerox. PARC. Google was developed at Stanford. And so forth. These facts should be top of mind when we hear idiots start bemoaning wasteful government spending on basic research.
The argument the book makes is that the internet is too important to be in the hands of a small group of profit driven monopolies under scant government oversight. You and I, as data, are the product that drives high tech networked products. We are bought and sold without our consent, or even our knowledge, and we have no share in the profits. To be honest, I hesitate to state more completely the thesis of the book because I don’t want an algorithm to sort me as a subversive. Dear algorithm, I didn’t write it; I only read it.
June 9, 2022
Everyone who has a smartphone should read this book! Larson explains the history and all the shenanigans that every big tech company is up to these days. He does a good job explaining a TON of information in a very succinct (sometimes cheesy) manner. I thought the last few chapters about the telecom industries as well as politics in tech were very interesting. I hope Larson writes another book where he deep dives into those chapters. I think this book should be mandatory reading in high school because I don't think a lot of the history of big tech gets talked about even though it is such a massive part of everyone's lives.
December 23, 2023
A much needed look into the inner workings of the Tech giants and how their image of promoting free competition and innovation is a sham like the old monopolists
April 30, 2020
lol at the irony of reviewing this in goodreads, owned by Amazon. Overall pretty insightful and accessible but also don't know that tone wise it would be useful to anyone who didn't already agree/share similar sentiments. Regardless, really appreciate the sources and insight into how the internet that rules our lives is structured politically and economically.
August 24, 2021
Genuinely enjoyed this read. Savage takedown of the big tech “bitators” and the way they have become too big to fail or to be governed by standard policy.
I did find some of the points around organising and content boycotting a bit flimsy in the conclusion but I don’t have a better alternative in mind! Overall a really concise and interesting read, would recommend to anyone interested in the online landscape or the nature of power in a capitalistic world we live in that these big 5 companies (amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple and Google) all have.
I did find some of the points around organising and content boycotting a bit flimsy in the conclusion but I don’t have a better alternative in mind! Overall a really concise and interesting read, would recommend to anyone interested in the online landscape or the nature of power in a capitalistic world we live in that these big 5 companies (amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple and Google) all have.
did-not-finish
September 27, 2020DNF for now, maybe forever. Not digging the author's style at all, and honestly idk that this needed to be a whole book.
August 17, 2020
Not as compelling as Larson's other work. The first few chapters are a gossipy trashing of Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Facebook - delightful beach reading, but not exactly novel analysis. Larson's argument that the Silicon Valley megafirms owe their wealth to privatizing technologies that were developed through public funds (ARPAnet, touchscreens, Wi-Fi, etc) is true, but doesn't require a whole book to expound on it.
Might be a useful gift for your libertarian nephew to help puncture some illusions about his idols. For someone who's already concluded that every billionaire is a policy failure, there's nothing new here.
Might be a useful gift for your libertarian nephew to help puncture some illusions about his idols. For someone who's already concluded that every billionaire is a policy failure, there's nothing new here.
December 13, 2020
A fun read, but ultimately felt less like a complete book and more like a bunch of short essays stitched together. LOTS of typos in the latter chapters too, though that could just be my edition.
April 7, 2020
I know very little about tech, but this book was written in an accessible fashion for the most part. Sometimes, you'd have to read a sentence one or twice or search up some defintion or historical period, but mostly you could follow through easily enough. I wish the writing style was more engaging, although the engrossing subject matter and detailed research makes up for that. There were times I couldn't put the book down.
The author takes on Big Tech and does it well - showing how most of the innovative technology that tech behemoths pride themselves on is actually developed in publicly-funded institutions like universities and military academies by scientists or students not harried by the demands of money-making profit-driven tweaks to products that need to rolled out every couple of weeks so keep the cash flowing in. There is some truly damning stuff here about all of the Big Five - Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft - but the author's ire is reserved mostly for Jobs and Gates who repeatedly appear as assholes: stealing tech, berating workers, suing competition, and lobbying Congress. The book never lets you forget that tech monopolies are a result of privilege and power, not hardwork and genius, by stripping most tech titans of the facade they've built around themselves. It is pretty easy to do this too, the book's basic publicly available research shows the lawsuits and the lies many CEOs have left in their paths.
With just enough repition to drive its central points home, I think the book is a good and important read. I'll be using the other books and articles provided within to learn more about tech and its history and return to this highely enjoyable read again and again, approaching it with a richer technical understanding. It is a great reference material to see exactly what is wrong with the internet and has a chapter that provides ways to start thinking of solutions.
The author takes on Big Tech and does it well - showing how most of the innovative technology that tech behemoths pride themselves on is actually developed in publicly-funded institutions like universities and military academies by scientists or students not harried by the demands of money-making profit-driven tweaks to products that need to rolled out every couple of weeks so keep the cash flowing in. There is some truly damning stuff here about all of the Big Five - Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft - but the author's ire is reserved mostly for Jobs and Gates who repeatedly appear as assholes: stealing tech, berating workers, suing competition, and lobbying Congress. The book never lets you forget that tech monopolies are a result of privilege and power, not hardwork and genius, by stripping most tech titans of the facade they've built around themselves. It is pretty easy to do this too, the book's basic publicly available research shows the lawsuits and the lies many CEOs have left in their paths.
With just enough repition to drive its central points home, I think the book is a good and important read. I'll be using the other books and articles provided within to learn more about tech and its history and return to this highely enjoyable read again and again, approaching it with a richer technical understanding. It is a great reference material to see exactly what is wrong with the internet and has a chapter that provides ways to start thinking of solutions.
December 28, 2021
A good overview of the social issues of tech companies and their owners. However, as someone already a bit familiar with a lot of these issues, I didn't feel like I learned a whole lot. I also felt that this kind of critique falls a bit flat if the most you really say is, "Monopolies are bad," and don't get more into the structural forces in modern capitalism that reward firms for pursuing monopoly, as well as the political challenges to regulation under American (neo) liberalism. There's a rich literature on this topic from Marxist scholars and others, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopol....
I thought the critiques of tech CEOs felt a bit petty. They certainly deserve to be brought down a peg given the widespread praise they often get, but I'm not convinced dunking on them really accomplishes that much in a critique of the industry. Entrepreneurial, conniving, psychopathic and self-aggrandizing business owners exist in all industries, even if their wealth is not as extreme as the tech barons.
I also wanted more detail on the idea from the last chapter of "internet socialism," which had some interesting points, but felt thin and wishful from my perspective.
I'd recommend this to folks looking to get a high-level overview of what's wrong with tech companies today, but to anyone relatively familiar with the issue already, I'd suggest a pass.
I welcome recommendations in the comments for texts that are more weighty on either the critique or the alternatives.
I thought the critiques of tech CEOs felt a bit petty. They certainly deserve to be brought down a peg given the widespread praise they often get, but I'm not convinced dunking on them really accomplishes that much in a critique of the industry. Entrepreneurial, conniving, psychopathic and self-aggrandizing business owners exist in all industries, even if their wealth is not as extreme as the tech barons.
I also wanted more detail on the idea from the last chapter of "internet socialism," which had some interesting points, but felt thin and wishful from my perspective.
I'd recommend this to folks looking to get a high-level overview of what's wrong with tech companies today, but to anyone relatively familiar with the issue already, I'd suggest a pass.
I welcome recommendations in the comments for texts that are more weighty on either the critique or the alternatives.
February 28, 2022
What's most compelling about this is that it isn't uncovering any secrets. The author did little if any original research, just pulled together corporate narratives, news stories, and a few books on the culture and economy of tech. All of this is known if you pay attention to tech news. It just reads differently when not written in the more common breathless, fawning tones.
The individual histories of the tech giants get repetitive: all have abusive work cultures, all evade taxes, all use anti-competitive business practices, all profit obscenely off of some amount of public-sector technology, all got lucky to some degree, all exploit blue-collar and/or overseas workforces to the hilt. But that is, after all, the point. The more holistic chapters, which cover subjects like net neutrality and tech in politics, could each be a decent standalone essay.
The language is unnecessarily rough - I don't think I've seen the phrase "ball-fondling" used in print before, and never need to see "douche" used as a prefix again - which hurts the overall quality, but it recedes after the introduction.
The individual histories of the tech giants get repetitive: all have abusive work cultures, all evade taxes, all use anti-competitive business practices, all profit obscenely off of some amount of public-sector technology, all got lucky to some degree, all exploit blue-collar and/or overseas workforces to the hilt. But that is, after all, the point. The more holistic chapters, which cover subjects like net neutrality and tech in politics, could each be a decent standalone essay.
The language is unnecessarily rough - I don't think I've seen the phrase "ball-fondling" used in print before, and never need to see "douche" used as a prefix again - which hurts the overall quality, but it recedes after the introduction.
May 26, 2020
Bit Tyrants explores how major tech companies abuse and exploit workers and customers. It argues that because CEOs only got their start through public funding, and because abuses of power are so rampant in the industry, tech companies (or perhaps only the tech companies listed in the book? or only companies above a certain size?) should be forcibly reorganized to give workers and customers more power. I honestly did not find this book compelling. It didn't present any new information, present it in a compelling way, or even convince me that socialization is the only or best way to solve the problem. However, I did learn a little more about what socialists believe and value, so not a total waste of time.
May 12, 2021
Somewhat disappointed in this one as someone already familiar with Silicon Valley's shitty practices and propensity for evil; the bulk of the text consists of surface level retellings of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple's histories, most of which I was already familiar with and containing a lot of redundant facts between chapters, and despite how much I agree with the author, there was really nothing new of significance I could chew on, or any indepth lecture on economy I could learn from. The later chapters tackle other relevant subjects such as net neutrality, although with similar depth, so I can only recommend this as a truly introductory text.
Read
April 19, 2020I don’t necessarily disagree with everything in this book (I enjoyed reading it actually, there were lots of info I didn’t know befofe) but I hate the bashing tone of the author. I wish he could employ a much more objective language rather than calling all of tech billionaires douchebags or the likes.
December 22, 2020
A very solid and approachable rundown that addresses each tyrant in turn. Although it's very thoroughly cited, the book did have a few typos and small factual errors that could be distracting from time to time.
August 24, 2025
Limps a bit during (what I find to be) overtly common narratives and speculation about an online socialism but overall draws good lines between government, economy, socialism, and the inundating tech industry
April 9, 2020
it was good until it starting touting orwell and chomsky as a good socialists and being anti-China by calling China "authoritarian"
August 2, 2020
Brilliant riposte to the society-wide cult of tech 'entrepreneurs'. And also it's just the right amount of bitchy.
September 5, 2020
★★★☆☆ | 3.5 Stars
October 10, 2020
Excellent and accessible summary of the history of concentration and monopolization in the tech industry.
October 30, 2020
Life would be better if all technology just died and we all became peasant farmers again.
March 12, 2021
The computer giants are just as ruthless as the other giants of capitalism.
Interesting but not chanllenging.
Interesting but not chanllenging.
August 12, 2021
a good introductory book for someone that doesn't know much about the tech oligopolies that we are entrenched in.
i'm writing this review on amazon's goodreads.
i'm writing this review on amazon's goodreads.
September 5, 2022
eye opening in a lot of ways
November 22, 2022
Fuck Zuckerberg.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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