A 52-year-old journalist who has covered the tech industry for decades is laid off. He joins a start-up where the average employee is aged 29 and tends to wear clothing bedecked with the company logo and colour. 这位报导科技行业几十年的记者52岁时被辞退了。然后他重新加入了一家初创企业，这里员工的平均年龄为29岁，常常身着具有公司标识和形象色的服装。

Coming from the author of a cutting satire of Steve Jobs, who now writes for the HBO comedy Silicon Valley, the tale could be mistaken for a film pitch or parodic dystopian novel. But Dan Lyons is serious. After being “dumped” as Newsweek’s technology editor in 2012, Lyons decides to ride Silicon Valley’s second great bubble. Lyons finds the right company, if only for the raw material that he, a seasoned satirist, spins into gold. 莱昂斯曾编写过有关史蒂夫乔布斯(Steve Jobs)的措辞嘲讽的讽刺作品，现在兼任美国家庭电影频道(HBO)喜剧《硅谷》(Silicon Valley)的编剧，因此这本书中的故事可能会被误以为是一部电影宣传片或一本戏仿性质的反乌托邦小说。但莱昂斯是严肃的。在2012年作为《新闻周刊》(Newsweek)的科技编辑被“炒鱿鱼”后，他要求利用硅谷第二次大泡沫的机会。

他去找对了公司，哪怕这只是让这位老道的讽刺作家寻找了妙笔生花所需的素材。When Lyons joins Boston-based HubSpot as a “marketing fellow” in 2013, it is gearing up to go public. Reeling from culture shock, Lyons catalogues daily life in the company and its unselfconsciously ridiculous vocabulary. 2013年，莱昂斯重新加入总部坐落于波士顿的HubSpot，兼任“营销员”，当时该公司于是以打算上市。文化冲击让莱昂斯晕头转向，他把公司的日常生活及其荒谬而不深知的用语分类记录了下来。Its software helps businesses assail customers with messages it says are not spam but “loveable marketing content”. Employees are not sacked, they are “graduated”. A co-founder totes a teddy bear to meetings to represent the customer. There are yoga ball chairs, free candy, taps dispensing beer, and a replica of a red British telephone box. The funny, if repetitive, descriptions paint a workplace that is “a cross between a kindergarten and a frat house”. 该公司的软件协助企业向客户展开信息空袭，称之为这些不是垃圾信息，而是“甜美的营销内容”。

在这家公司，员工不是被辞退，而是“毕业”。一位牵头创始人不会带着一个泰迪熊召开，用它代表客户。那里有瑜伽球椅、免费糖果、出有啤酒的水龙头以及一个仿造的英国红色电话亭。

书中嘲讽（尽管有些反复）的叙述描绘出一个“介于幼儿园和联谊会之间”的办公场所。But the book is not just a chronicle of the tech bubble’s silly quirks. As Lyons gets to know HubSpot, questions arise about the business model of a company that does not appear to trust its product. At one point his desk is moved to a “boiler room” of telemarketers selling HubSpot software, which claims to replace such dated practices. The company says it evaluates its employees on “HEART” — an anodyne acronym for “humble, effective, adaptable, remarkable and transparent” — but holds its sales reps to strict quotas. 但本书某种程度记录了科技泡沫中的奇人怪事。

随着莱昂斯对HubSpot的渐渐理解，他开始批评这家或许不坚信自身产品的公司的商业模式。他的办公桌一度搬到到“电话促销室”，电话推销员在这里促销HubSpot软件，而该软件才是声称要代替电话促销这种过时的作法。该公司回应是根据“HEART”标准（即谦虚、高效、突发事件、卓越和半透明）取决于员工展现出，却给销售代表规定了严苛的任务额。Lyons uses the lens of his growing disillusionment to focus a broader critique of Silicon Valley. “The people at the top are profiting from this game, which they have rigged in their favour,” he writes, by turning money-losing start-ups into financial vehicles for the benefit of a handful of investors. Tech workers, meanwhile, “are told the needs of the company are more important than their own”. 莱昂斯从一种更加精神状态的视角探讨于对硅谷的更加普遍抨击。

“正处于顶层的人们于是以从游戏中利润，他们操控游戏使之不利于自己，”他写到，他们把亏损的初创企业变为了让少数投资者获益的金融工具。与此同时，科技从业者“被告诉公司的必须比他们自己的更加最重要”。The darkest turn comes, after Lyons has thoroughly fallen out with HubSpot (but profited from its IPO), returned to journalism and written this book. HubSpot’s chief marketing officer is sacked for unethical conduct after trying to obtain Lyons’s manuscript, another executive resigns before he too can be fired and the chief executive is sanctioned for his role in the affair. The Federal Bureau of Investigation probes the incident. 在莱昂斯与HubSpot完全交恶（但从该公司的首次公开发行(IPO)中受益）、重回记者工作并编写这本书后，最黑暗的巨变到来了。

HubSpot首席营销官在企图取得莱昂斯的手稿后因不道德行为被辞退，另一位高管在也有可能被辞退之前请辞，首席执行官因在此事中的角色拒绝接受惩处。美国联邦调查局(FBI)对此事展开了调查。But it is HubSpot’s response to the book that suggests it is as clueless as Lyons portrays it. The co-founders write a LinkedIn post that strikes the wounded tone of a jilted ex. 但确实指出HubSpot就像莱昂斯刻画的那样可笑的，是该公司对这本书的对此。该公司的几位牵头创始人在LinkedIn上发帖，伤势的语气好像被舍弃的前任。

“We were upset when we first read the book,” they write. “But negative emotions have a relatively short half-life with us. Our emotions have been dissipating quickly and we think they’ll asymptotically trend towards zero over time. Besides, life is too short to hold grudges.” “当我们第一次读书这本书时，我们深感伤心，”他们写到，“但负面情绪对我们的影响比较一段时间。我们的负面情绪于是以很快减弱，我们坚信，随着时间的推移，它们不会消失只剩。另外，人生苦短，须心存愤恨。

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