Inside the Silicon Valley Money Machine - Chaos Monkeys

If Antonio Martinez never writes another book, he will still go down as the author who best captured the Zeitgeist in the hottest (dare I say central?) industry of our times.

Much like Michael Lewis’ debut a short 26 years ago, this is the story of a young graduate who lands a seat at the high table without having formally been invited, makes the most of it, keeps his sanity and lives to tell.

So you follow him from the Vampire Squid to Adchemy, you cheer for him when he persuades two engineers to leave and help him set up AdGrok, you do the math alongside him when he’s selling to Twitter and Facebook at the same time, you pitch FBX (Facebook Exchange) with him to Sheryl… I guess I’ve spoilt it enough, let’s leave it there.

You may cringe at language that would make Matt Taibbi blush, but the profanity is always a propos and would certainly never be out of place at the series of workplaces where this drama unfolds. The author’s writing is truly mesmerizing, constantly reminding me that no matter how hard I try I shall never be able to write as well as the truly gifted.

Martinez’ command of the English language is only bettered by his grasp of the nowadays high tech business of persuasion and his ability to convey the basics to the reader. Now I’ve read Chaos Monkeys I have some faint idea of how it all works.

Here’s to hoping that he’s got more books in him.

I found this to be an incredible read. In providing a real "inside baseball" look inside Facebook, it reminds me of Startup, the great book about how Microsoft strung Go computing along while working on a competing tablet internally. A must read for any student of Silicon Valley startup culture, but particularly for those of us in the Ad Tech industry who wonder what the heck is going on inside all of those "walled gardens".

Martinez calls Silicon Valley “the tech whorehouse” and like that proverbial piano player in the whorehouse, he writes a classic “tell all” of who is screwing who.

The good stuff
The most likely path to achieve liquidity in 20th century Silicon Valley was via an IPO. Back then no investment banker would take you public without 5 quarters of increasing revenue and profitability, with another 4 quarters post IPO in the bag. Therefore, investors taught their founders how to build company’s. Today the words “startup,” “entrepreneur” and “venture capital” are still spelled the same, but rising out of the dot-com ashes they took on a very different meaning then they did in the 20th century. Today in web/mobile/software, company building for revenue and profit is long gone. For most startups the likely liquidity path is to get acquired. Startups get bought for their talent (aqua hire’s) or for their user base or their technology, and startup mills like Y-Combinator crank out tech wonks who get funded with 3-minute pitches. And therein lies Martinez's tale.

Martinez is a great writer (in the gonzo journalism style of Hunter Thompson) and tells a great story of what startups and entrepreneurs look like in the second decade of the 21st century. If you didn’t know how web/mobile advertising technology worked he’ll educate you. If you wanted to know the inside mechanics of how Facebook worked, he has plenty of juicy gossip of a low-level manager. And if you wanted to know how to overthink and badly run a startup while screwing your co-founders as you’re selling out as an aquahires, yep it’s there as well.

Well written, cynical, nasty, sarcastic, the book is punctuated by great clear-eyed insight that people on the bottom of the pile often have.
If you like the HBO series “Silicon Valley” here’s a real-life version. The book definitely should be on your reading list.

The bad stuff
As Dan Lyons proved in the book "Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble" being a smart cynical critic is almost a guarantee that you’re unable to build something of value. It may just be that you have such clear insight that you get the game but can’t bring yourself to play it, but the fact is that you’re trashing the people you’re working for while you’re taking their money. Much like being the moralist writing, “My life in the whorehouse.”

In some worlds you realize; integrity is worth more than money, the testosterone and alcohol fueled binges of your 20’s and 30’s are not things you are going to be proud of later, the co-founders you screwed were a test of your character, and the children you fathered and abandoned - while grist for a great book, might not make you a great person.

But not in the world Antonio Garcia Martinez inhabits. The fans cheering him on are like the people who cheer on the jumper on the edge of the building. It’s great entertainment with clearly a movie deal and lots of book signings to come.

Let’s just hope the end isn’t like Hunter Thompson.

This is a terrific book, and one I highly recommend. The Author was both a Doer and an Observer. He sees his own faults pretty clearly, and those of others insightfully, and all the while uses his big brain to explain, clarify and expose.

Fun, obscene (thanks), hilarious almost all the time, Chaos Monkeys is an unsettling ride on the wild side of ad serving and Internet money making. With parallels to Wall Street I have never seen ventured, this book insults your ignorance of how a company like Facebook is really run. It's not sleight of hand and it's not very directed, but some companies are most certainly at the right place at the right time.

Clearly, Antonio had some scores to settle through this book, but he also manages to share very useful insight into the engines that are powering our new economy. I'd recommend enjoying the snark to the degree that it appeals to you, but focus on the remarkable descriptions of business models, organizational agility and the human toll of work-first cultures. These are seldom shared as freely and honestly.

Insightful. Unique and very effective way of expressing ideas. Insider's view of Silicon Valley and Wall Street. This book is entertaining, educational and thought provoking; it is also an exceptionally good read.

You have probably heard the cliche about the greatest minds of this generation selling online ads. This is an autobiography of one of those great minds. A Berkeley Ph.D, Martinez built tools that sold, optimized, quantified and tracked online ads at a couple of startups, sold a startup to Twitter, and worked in ads during the crucial pre and post IPO years at Facebook.

I learned an incredible amount of about online advertising, privacy and Facebook. The inside view of Facebook was unique and well written (and I've read a fair bit of tech journalism). A lot of dry and difficult topics are clearly addressed.

Martinez is smart and funny and his voice comes through. He's self-depreciating and very frank in his judgments and I'm glad I'm not his defamation lawyer. You may even build your vocabulary; I was hitting my Kindle dictionary at an unprecedented rate.

I highly recommend this book.

Good read and some good insights into internet startups and the big boys like Facebook and Google. Biggest insight is that startup businesses are bought not for the code but for the talent. Writer is very entertaining but gets a little too technical especially when it comes to his area of expertise which is the ads monetisation bit.

I'm convinced a major reason "Chaos Monkeys" isn't even more popular is because it provides so much insight into ad tech (how our personal data is harvested, sold, targeted, and greases the wheels of several industries and our most valuable companies – the site you're reading this on knows a thing or two about it), that many readers would rather sound uniquely astute rather than acknowledge where and how they became so informed.

Chaos Monkeys also has the stones to name names and criticize Valley royalty by name. No pseudonyms here (beyond love interests referenced which, frankly, would've been too callously transparent had they not been shielded), and only one composite character. We learn firsthand accounts of encounters with the famous and powerful – all their myriad foibles and merits. The author's appraisals of such, of course.

There's also compelling, behind the scenes accounts of machinations at the major valley companies that, to my knowledge, had previously gone unreported. You knew these developments if you knew insiders, but little made its way into published journalism. Reporters have to maintain relationships with sources; Garcia Martinez isn't afraid of lobbing bombs. Sometimes it's apparent he knows he's burning bridges... others he takes unconcealed glee in doing so. It all makes for great reading when most memoirs by people this age are hesitant to step on toes.

The audiobook ends with an epilogue interview by Stephen Levy, wherein Garcia Martinez acknowledges he was attracted to Wall Street by the venerable Michael Lewis, whose "Liar's Poker" is required reading for any wannabe financier. Like most readers of Lewis, he holds him in high regard. Undoubtedly a beneficiary of the material here being primary source, brazenly juicy stuff (Lewis is forced to approach things more as a chronicling investigator), but for my money, Garcia Martinez' prose is even livelier, crisp, and amusingly sardonic – and I'm disappointed there isn't more (yet) by him.

I've worked in high tech since 1995. Three companies, in which I worked, were pre-IPO start-ups including salesforce.com. The stories in this book resonated on so many levels. I just completely enjoyed it; could not put it aside; and highly recommend it.

A really good read but more importantly a fascinating insight to the way Silicon Valley works. I picked up this book after seeing Antonio deliver a lecture in person and it didn't disappoint. A no holds bared review and critique of what really drives Silicon Valley.

Awesome read. The book contained a lot of information about the life in a start up from being a founder, entrepreneur to a product manager at Facebook. I enjoyed reading how Facebook was able to monetize and the work needed to get it done.

This book really does show the dark underbelly of the ad business in Silicon Valley. It also destroys the myth of meritocracy and fairness that Silicon Valley likes to ballyhoo, because if fairness existed the author of this book would have had his fall from grace much earlier than near the end of the story.

Chances are, you won't like the author and it's clear that the author doesn't care about that. He is proud of what he's done and why he's done it. I would seriously recommend this book even though I gave it 3 stars because the author really shows the risks we all run when we're using technology and free platforms. The author has some biases that he proudly wears on his sleeve, his love of money is paramount among those. This is important because he's writing algorithms specifically algorithms for the ads you see on a number of social media sites you use on a regular basis. I found the parts about inner working of Facebook and other companies much more compelling than his bragging about his sexual escapades or whatever car he was driving - which is why I knocked the book.

Very interesting but tedious in places. Best enjoyed by those who like narcissistic personalities or the technical minutiae of social media advertising. Writing is better than most such books though.

Chaos Monkeys is both an entertaining read and an incredibly accurate view into the life of many entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. This is a must-read for entrepreneurs or those seeking to build an understanding of the modern advertising industry.

The book well revealed the hidden truths behind successful start-ups and giant players in Silicon Valley. Detailed story alongside a natural storytelling helped me feel the way Antonio went through there. Besides, one thing probably needed to be improved is the he tried to prolong many scenes. Overall, this is a good book for whom wants to get out of your comfort zone for a start-up but stand on your foe to understand what's going around indeed.

What can be said of Antonio Garcia Martinez is what was recently said of Nassim Taleb (albeit with different job titles): 'Taleb had a successful career as a hedge fund manager, later focusing his time as a statistician, risk analyst, mathematician and author. “Fooled By Randomness” is one of Taleb’s works. The book cover advertises Malcolm Gladwell dubbing Taleb “Wall Street’s principal dissident. [‘Fooled by Randomness’] is to conventional Wall Street approximately what Martin Luther’s ninety-nine theses were to the Catholic Church.” By exposing human fallibility, Taleb opens eyes to the fact that pure luck often shapes outcomes more than we believe.'

Fortune magazine ranked Taleb's Fooled By Randomness as one of the smartest books of all time. Garcia's Chaos Monkeys is without question one of the smartest books of 2016, if not the funniest. And if you like the writing style of Michael Lewis (who doesn't) mixed with biting satire reminiscent of Evelyn Waugh (the 20th century's finest satirist), then buy the book, now.

If Taleb is Wall Street's principal dissident then Garcia is surely Silicon Valley's. Like Taleb, Garcia absolutely opens more eyes to the fact that pure luck often shapes outcomes, particularly in Silicon Valley, more than we believe.

Malcolm Gladwell recently wrote, "Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its capacity to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else's head."

By Gladwell's definition of good writing, Garcia undoubtedly succeeds. While some quibble or may not be entirely persuaded with one of his main arguments (essentially, he contends that open system (FDX) was/is better for Facebook and their future vs. closed system (CA and FAN)), one finishes the book respecting him and appreciating that glimpse (more like a Facebook 360 degree view and not a mere glimpse) Gladwell spoke of.

Plus, the writing is worth the purchase alone with sentences like, "A breeze from the grave suddenly blew across dreams of youth, which lay caked in the patient dust of "someday," and made them gleam again with their original brilliance."

Let's hope Garcia is still feeling the effects of that blessed breeze as we await his next book.

Very entertaining book, particularly for anyone in the ad:tech industry or wondering what's behind the advertising "bubble". Talented writer with an ability to bring in amusing historical perspective/quotes and relate them to current industry observations. Saving my five star rating for something a bit more impactful and/or life-changing. :-)

This is the Silicon Valley version of Liar's Poker. It's a must read for everyone in startup ecosystem. First, Antonio's account of how tech world operates is honest and revealing. He is not afraid to give his personal judgements on people who run in and outs of tech startups.

Even if you are just an employee you will benefit reading this book.

The author is clearly a highly intelligent person with a vast grasp of the English language. There are some entertaining scenes and interesting insights into the world of tech startups, though it couldn't have been shorter.

Great book, but the second half is definitely not an easy read. The level of technical details was fairly dense for someone who doesn't work with ad exchanges day to day, but that's what appealed to me a lot. I can see how it can be not the case for everyone.

Refreshing and honest look at the inner workings of a Silicon Valley startup. If you think it's all about idealist geniuses collaborating to bring wonderful new technologies and software to the public, you are in for a ride. Martinez is at times a loathsome business partner, a miserable spouse (n.b., he was never technically married but had a committed relationship, including children), and a deceptive opportunist. But in the end, one cannot help but applaud his self awareness and perspective.

Martinez takes us through all the phases - idea formation, setting up a team, supplications for investments, being sued, and ultimately cashing out. Throughout he destroys conventional wisdom by simply telling it like it is.

Well worth a read. One of the best books on tech startups. Should be required reading for tech entrepreneurs.

Good read for anyone wanting to learn about the tech startup scene in Silicon Valley. Great lessons for how early investors can get screwed, while employees benefit. Would recommend to anyone investing in tech companies for the first time, or for someone starting a tech company.

Lots of great quotes and lines (e.g. on Page 198: "As the hardened SoMa veteran joke goes: the homeless have Android phones, while the techies have iPhones."

p. 50: “Most successful startups depend on one miracle only…The classic sign of a [bad] startup idea is that it requires at least two (or more!) miracles to succeed."

p. 66: “One of Mark Twain’s more uplifting quotes maintains that small people always belittle your ambitions, while the great make you feel that you too can be great.”