It's Monday, October 14th, 2019, and you're listening to Inquiring Minds. I'm Indrae Viscontas.

Each week, we bring you a new, in-depth exploration of the space where science, politics, and society collide.

We endeavor to find out what's true, what's left to discover, and why it all matters.

You can find us online at inquiring.com, on Twitter, at Inquiring Show and on Facebook.

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And you can subscribe to the show on iTunes or any other podcasting app.

I'm off this week, but in my place is our correspondent, Adam Bristol.

Following up on his super interesting interview with Mac Richtel, he decided to interview him again,

this time about a novel that he had written.

We live in Silicon Valley, or at least adjacent to it, and it's an

ideal as much as it is a place. Silicon Valley is a place of innovation, progressive idealism,

and capitalism. As companies from Silicon Valley shape the way that we interact with each other

and many other aspects of our society, there is an ethos of idealism that

permeates at least the initial goals of these kinds of startups. But ultimately, do they fall short

of their promise? There have been plenty of ways in which the tech giants have disappointed us,

or even pulled us into a future that we really don't want, and is edging

towards dystopia. And all over the world, governments and municipalities have tried to

recreate Silicon Valley, and the success has been relatively limited. Even though it has this

worldwide cultural impact, traditionally the Valley has not been the subject of enough scrutiny, both for its

successes and failures. Of course, there are many books on Apple and Google and Facebook and other

tech titans. And in episode 164, I spoke with journalist Alexandra Wolf about her book,

...