Lab Rats: Tech Gurus, Junk Science, and Management Fads-My Quest to Make Work Less Miserable

by Dan Lyons

Overview

New York Times bestselling author Dan Lyons exposes how the "new oligarchs" of Silicon Valley have turned technology into a tool for oppressing workers in this "passionate" (Kirkus) and "darkly funny" (Publishers Weekly) examination of workplace culture.

At a time of soaring corporate profits and plenty of HR lip service about "wellness," millions of workers--in virtually every industry -- are deeply unhappy. Why did work become so miserable? Who is responsible? And does any company have a model for doing it right?

For two years, Lyons ventured in search of answers. From the innovation-crazed headquarters of the Ford Motor Company in Detroit, to a cult-like "Holocracy" workshop in San Francisco, and to corporate trainers who specialize in . . . Legos, Lyons immersed himself in the often half-baked and frequently lucrative world of what passes for management science today. He shows how new tools, workplace practices, and business models championed by tech's empathy-impaired power brokers have shattered the social contract that once existed between companies and their employees. These dystopian beliefs--often masked by pithy slogans like "We're a Team, Not a Family" -- have dire consequences: millions of workers who are subject to constant change, dehumanizing technologies -- even health risks.

A few companies, however, get it right. With Lab Rats, Lyons makes a passionate plea for business leaders to understand this dangerous transformation, showing how profit and happy employees can indeed coexist.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316561853
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	10/23/2018
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
File size:	689 KB

About the Author

Dan Lyons is a novelist, journalist, and screenwriter. He is currently a co-producer and -writer for the HBO series Silicon Valley. Previously, Lyons was technology editor at Newsweek and the creator of the groundbreaking viral blog "The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs" (AKA "Fake Steve Jobs"). Lyons has written for the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Vanity Fair, and Wired. He lives in Winchester, MA.

Table of Contents

Welcome to Your New Job xi

Introduction: Make a Duck 1

Part I Misery In The Maze 13

Chapter 1 Unhappy in Paradise 15

Chapter 2 The New Oligarchs 29

Chapter 3 A Very Brief History of Management Science (and Why You Shouldn't Trust It) 51

Chapter 4 Who's Afraid of Silicon Valley? 68

Part II Four Factors of Workplace Despair 79

Chapter 5 Building the Workforce of the Future (or: Sorry You're Old and We'd Like You to Leave) 81

Chapter 6 Money: "Garbage at the Speed of Light" 89

Chapter 7 Insecurity: "We're a Team, Not a Family" 108

Chapter 8 Change: "What Happens If You Live Inside a Hurricane That Never Ends?" 125

Chapter 9 Dehumanization: "Think of Yourself as a Machine Within a Machine" 146

Part III The No-Shit-Sherlock School of Management 165

Chapter 10 The Battle for the Soul of Work 167

Chapter 11 Basecamp: Back to Basics 175

Chapter 12 Managed by Q: "Everybody Cleans" 188

Chapter 13 Kapor Capital: Conscious Capitalists 201

Chapter 14 The Social Enterprise Movement 217

Epilogue: Can Zebras Fix What Unicorns Have Broken? 228

Acknowledgments 235

Selected Bibliography 237

Index 251

What People are Saying About This

#1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Happiness Project and The Four Tendencies - Gretchen Rubin

“I loved Dan Lyons’s book Disrupted. With LAB RATS, he takes his critique of the modern workplace to the next level, to show how Silicon Valley’s sometimes disturbing ideas about how to treat employees now pervade many workplaces. This is a fascinating, thought-provoking, hilarious, and sometimes harrowing account of current work culture.”

New York Times-bestselling author of In Search of Excellence - Tom Peters

“Dan Lyons' LAB RATS defies easy description. It is hilarious, but not funny. I sputtered laughing and choked crying (literally, not figuratively) as I read it. Yes, to an extreme, Lyons gives Silicon Valley the thrashing that it, alas, largely deserves. But in the final third of the book, he offers us an effectively illustrated way out--an approach to work and business that puts people first, profitably serves customers, and makes the world a little bit better in the process.”

Editorial Reviews

10/15/2018
In the tradition of works such as Marshall McLuhan's The Gutenberg Galaxy, Lyons (Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble) offers a first-person account of contemporary workplace disruption, citing how new technologies supersede older ones, and that the workplace is slow to make the transition. Companies such as IBM, General Electric, and Sears have faced this challenge with varying success. As Lyons notes, employees can become trapped in a situation beyond reason or control. He argues that management consultants fuel the problem; in a fast-moving world, management learned by apprenticeship is no longer practiced or practicable. His hopefulness comes from fields relating to hospitality as customer-facing organizations often have a better handle on valuing both customers and those who support them. VERDICT A must-read for tech entrepreneurs and anyone interested in the shifting dynamics of workplace culture.—Steven Silkunas, Fernandina Beach, FL

Library Journal

A Guardian Best Book of 2019


An Inc. Magazine Best Business Book of 2018

"I loved Dan Lyons's book Disrupted. With Lab Rats, he takes his critique of the modern workplace to the next level, to show how Silicon Valley's sometimes disturbing ideas about how to treat employees now pervade many workplaces. This is a fascinating, thought-provoking, hilarious, and sometimes harrowing account of current work culture."—Gretchen Rubin, #1 NewYork Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project and TheFour Tendencies

"Dan Lyons's Lab Rats defies easy description. It is hilarious, but not funny. I sputtered laughing and choked crying (literally, not figuratively) as I read it. Yes, to an extreme, Lyons gives Silicon Valley the thrashing that it, alas, largely deserves. But in the final third of the book, he offers us an effectively illustrated way out—an approach to work and business that puts people first, profitably serves customers, and makes the world a little bit better in the process."—Tom Peters, NewYork Times bestselling author of In Search of Excellence

"A lively and spirited takedown."
—The Guardian

"[Lyons] argues persuasively.... A passionate indictment of brutal workplace culture."—Kirkus Reviews

"[A] darkly funny journalistic look at the contemporary workplace.... By turns sardonic and impassioned, this is an insightful and frequently entertaining guide to the increasingly bizarre world of Silicon Valley and the trends it spawns."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"[Lab Rats] exposes the junk science and questionable management practices that have migrated from Silicon Valley to the rest of the economy."—Knowledge@Wharton

"Fair warning: you may need an extra set of hands around while you're reading Lab Rats. You'll need them to help pick your jaw up off the floor."—Houston Style Magazine

"With Lab Rats, Lyons makes a passionate plea for business leaders to understand this dangerous transformation and offers a way out."—BookPassage

"This book should be required reading for anybody who thinks working for a startup in Silicon Valley would be fun."—TechNewsWorld

"Skewering corporate jargon, management science, and, worst of all, enforced fun, Lyons's waggish jeremiad lays out how the world of work has changed for the worse."—Tatler

"An entertaining polemic against the tech industry.... Instead of obsessing about unicorns (startup companies worth more than $1 billion), the author thinks the world should look for 'zebras,' which can turn a profit and improve society at the same time. Many modern workers will agree."—The Economist

"Lyons is a very funny journalist... Much of his polemic rings true."—The Financial Times

"Entertaining... A worthwhile and disturbing read."—Sunday Business Post

"Funny and frightening."
—Sunday Post

"Dan Lyons'... quest to understand the modern workplace has yielded an amusing but often harrowing report from the front lines."—Boston Globe

From the Publisher

2018-08-20

How the tech industry, fueled by greed, is shaping workers' experiences across the business world.

Lyons (Disrupted: My Misadventures in the Start-Up Bubble, 2016, etc.), a former staff writer for HBO's Silicon Valley and technology editor at Newsweek, mounts a caustic critique of mercenary tech culture, which, he argues persuasively, is infiltrating many other businesses. "We have a new work culture," he writes, "that celebrates overwork, exhaustion, and stress," led by people who care about nothing but making money. "Instead of geeky engineers," he writes, "the industry draws hustlers, young guys who hope to get rich quick," financed by voracious venture capitalists. Most new startups "are terribly managed, half-assed outfits run by buffoons and bozos and frat boys, and funded by amoral investors who are only hoping to flip the company into the public markets and make a quick buck." After the VC's have taken their bounty, most startups never make a profit. But the author's focus is less on the viability of startups than the fates of workers, who are mercilessly exploited and so desperate that some kill themselves. Among the many tech oligarchs he condemns is Jeff Bezos, "a modern-day Ebenezer Scrooge," running sweatshops where workers do physically demanding jobs in unsafe environments, earn low wages, and are forced to be "permatemps" not entitled to benefits. Lyons cites four factors contributing to worker unhappiness: money (besides low wages, many big companies have raided their employees' pension funds); job insecurity (rapid turnover is encouraged, and workers are fired for capricious reasons); constant, random changes, including instituting cultlike philosophies and demeaning workshops, classes, and role-playing games; and dehumanization, such as open office plans where employees have no privacy and endure constant surveillance of their emails, chats, website visits, and even bathroom breaks. The author ends with a note of optimism: his discovery of a "quiet movement" of responsible business leaders building worker-friendly, inclusive, and diverse companies; business courses that emphasize social responsibility; and socially conscious funding by "well-intentioned rich people."

A passionate indictment of brutal workplace culture.

Kirkus Reviews