Don't Be Evil

Don't Be Evil

The Case Against Big Tech

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

An award-winning Financial Times columnist exposes the threat that Big Tech poses to our democracies, our economies and ourselves

Today Google and Facebook receive 90% of the world's news ad-spending. Amazon takes half of all ecommerce in the US. Google and Apple operating systems run on all but 1% of cell phones globally. And 80% of corporate wealth is now held by 10% of companies - not the GEs and Toyotas of this world, but the digital titans.

How did we get here? How did the tech industry get to dominate our world so completely? How did once-idealistic and innovative companies come to manipulate elections, violate our privacy, and pose a threat to the fabric of our democracy? In Don't Be Evil, Financial Times global business columnist Rana Foroohar documents how Big Tech lost its soul - and became the new Wall Street.

Through her skilled reporting and unparalleled access - won through nearly 30 years covering business and technology - she shows the true extent to which the 'Faang's (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google) crush or absorb any potential competitors, hijack our personal data and mental space and offshore their exorbitant profits. What's more, she reveals how these threats to our democracies, our livelihoods and our minds are all intertwined. Yet Foroohar also lays out a plan for how we can resist, creating a framework that fosters innovation while also protecting us from the dark side of digital technology.

Reviews

  • A masterful critique of the tech giants that now dominate our world . . . The great thing about her book is that it breaks the mesmerising spell that the tech giants seem to have cast upon governments, mass media and users everywhere
    John Naughton, Observer, 'Book of the Week'

About the author

Rana Foroohar

Rana Foroohar is global business columnist and associate editor for the Financial Times. She is also CNN's global economic analyst. Previously, Foroohar was the assistant managing editor in charge of business and economics at Time, as well as the magazine's economic columnist. She also spent 13 years at Newsweek, as an economic and foreign affairs editor and a foreign correspondent covering Europe and the Middle East. In 2019 she was awarded the 'Best in Business' prize for top commentary writing on tech and policy, by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. She has also received awards and fellowships from institutions such as the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the East-West Center. She is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more