Don't Be Evil - by Claire Stapleton (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

"An absolute must-read for anyone interested not just in big tech, but in what it takes to not lose your soul in modern-day America." --Naomi Fry, staff writer at The New Yorker

A whip-smart, darkly funny, and timely memoir of one woman's twelve years inside Google and her transformation from insider to dissenter as the company's ideals begin to unravel from within.

When Claire Stapleton joined Google in 2007, it felt like stepping into a worldview as much as a job. The company offered not just a career, but a moral project. In the heady early years of Big Tech and when Google's in-house slogan was "Don't be evil," it was easy to believe that technology wasn't just changing the world--it was going to fix it.

Stapleton quickly became known as the "Bard of Google," pulled into the rooms where the company narrated itself--writing speeches, blog posts, and executive communications for leaders including Larry Page. As she rose through increasingly rarefied roles, from the storied Creative Lab to YouTube marketing, she helped shape the myth from the inside.

But as the gap between Google's ideals and its reality widened, the dissonance became impossible to ignore. In 2018, amid outrage over the company's handling of sexual harassment, Stapleton helped organize the 20,000-employee Google Walkout--a defining rupture in Silicon Valley's self-image that The New York Times called a "watershed moment in tech." Overnight, she became a public face of employee revolt--and no longer someone the company could neatly fold back into its story.

Sharp, witty, and unsparing, Don't Be Evil is an insider's account of how power actually works--and a deeper reckoning with the stories we tell about work, purpose, and ourselves. In a culture that collapses identity into work, and as tech elites blur the line between private authority and public life, it asks: how much can you change from within--and when is it time to walk away?

Review Quotes

"Don't Be Evil takes us through Claire Stapleton's disillusionment with a company that claimed to champion progressive and utopian values, but ultimately put profit and power above all else. This book is an absolute must-read for anyone interested not just in big tech, but in what it takes to not lose your soul in modern-day America. I loved it." - Naomi Fry, staff writer at The New Yorker

"There's a reason Claire was a beloved icon at Google, before the worm turned and rot of the business model spread too visibly. She writes with frankness, clarity, and deep attentiveness to what's actually in play, backed by a cool woman's unwillingness to navigate bullshit quietly. How fucking refreshing. I devoured Don't Be Evil--the read is so exact I had to stop and gasp. A gorgeous historical document, delivered with a warm, relatable voice and impeccable humor. This book is the diary of a real one, at a critical moment, and I can't recommend it highly enough!" - Meredith Whittaker, president of the Signal Foundation

"Don't Be Evil is enraging, galvanizing, and illuminating. Claire Stapleton tells her own story, and the story of Big Tech's rapacious pursuit of power, with stunning bravery, wit and clarity. Every manager, employee, HR exec, journalist, C-suite bro, and starry-eyed young graduate entering the workforce should read this book." - Laurie Woolever, author of Care and Feeding: A Memoir and Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography

"Don't Be Evil is a corporate memoir told with a singular voice, written by someone who literally was Google's corporate voice. Claire takes us along for her journey from the company's internal monologue to a righteous labor organizer. Candid and hilarious, she writes against the glossy AI-pilled grain of girlbosses and Silicon Valley go-getters alike." - Alex Hanna, co-author of The AI Con

"Beautifully written and searingly honest . . . Don't Be Evil offers a psychological map of our bewitchment by tech. The obtuseness, greed, cruelty, and dishonesty at the heart of the corporation is documented with forensic precision."

- Catherine Liu, author of Virtue Hoarders: The Case against the Professional Managerial Class