Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus Audiobook By Douglas Rushkoff cover art

Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus

How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity

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Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus

By: Douglas Rushkoff
Narrated by: Douglas Rushkoff
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Why doesn’t the explosive growth of companies like Facebook and Uber deliver more prosperity for everyone?

What is the systemic problem that sets the rich against the poor and the technologists against everybody else?

When protesters shattered the windows of a bus carrying Google employees to work, their anger may have been justifiable, but it was misdirected. The true conflict of our age isn’t between the unem­ployed and the digital elite, or even the 99 percent and the 1 percent. Rather, a tornado of technological improvements has spun our economic program out of control, and humanity as a whole—the protesters and the Google employees as well as the shareholders and the executives—are all trapped by the consequences. It’s time to optimize our economy for the human beings it’s supposed to be serving.

In this groundbreaking book, acclaimed media scholar and author Douglas Rushkoff tells us how to combine the best of human nature with the best of modern technology. Tying together disparate threads—big data, the rise of robots and AI, the increasing participation of algorithms in stock market trading, the gig economy, the collapse of the eurozone—Rushkoff provides a critical vocabulary for our economic moment and a nuanced portrait of humans and commerce at a critical crossroads.

 Economics Capitalism E-Commerce Commerce Technology Theory US Economy Technology & Society Sociology Taxation History & Culture Socialism

Critic reviews

“Douglas Rushkoff is one of today’s most incisive media theorists and a provocative critic of our digital economy. He’s also fun to read.”
—WALTER ISAACSON, president and CEO, The Aspen Institute, and author of The Innovators

“If you don’t know Rushkoff, you’re not serious about figuring out what’s going to happen next.”
—SETH GODIN, author of Linchpin

“Thoughtful, provocative, and essential reading for our economic moment.”
—JOI ITO, director, MIT Media Lab

“We’ve optimized for growth. But have we lost our way? As an economy? As a community? As a society with a value proposition that doesn’t make sense on a human or economic level? Rushkoff asks questions that matter. A challenging and necessary read.”
—SHERRY TURKLE, author of Reclaiming Conversation

“Every great advance begins when someone sees that what everyone else takes for granted may not actually be true. Douglas Rushkoff questions the deepest assumptions of the modern economy and blazes a path toward a more human-centered world.”
—TIM O’REILLY, founder, O’Reilly Media

“Douglas Rushkoff is a true digital visionary. Read this rousing call to reboot our society from the bottom up before it’s too late.”
—ASTRA TAYLOR, filmmaker and author of The People’s Platform

“In what could be seen as a crisis, Rushkoff shares his smart, optimistic, and pragmatic perspective about how both businesses and consumers can reimagine today’s current economic operating system in the digital age—and prosper.”
—BONIN BOUGH, chief media and e-commerce officer, Mondelēz

“Powerful truth telling… The crux of the argument that Rushkoff makes is that the digital economy is a house of cards built on fictional growth metrics that drive companies to raise money, undercut human workers, sell on the public markets and then—almost inevitably—collapse under the weight of public market demands.”
—Forbes

“A brilliant, bomb-hurling critique of the flaws in our digital economy, identifying what has gone wrong and what can be done about it.”
—Financial Times

“A powerful exposé of an underdiscussed downside to the digital revolution.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Fresh Perspective • Humanistic Approach • Insightful Analysis • Historical References • Economic Alternatives

Highly rated for:

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Most relevant
Excellent and thorough presentation on how wealth gets concentrated into the hands of the few, and some interesting ideas on how we can, in our current business and technical climate, begin to unravel this and create more widely held prosperity. Be prepared for a long listen, he covers a lot of ground. Could easily be two books!

Thought provoking...

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It's not just about the google bus situation. It goes into detail around the pursuit of growth over a sustainable long term business. Well worth reading.

Don't be put off by the title

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Nice to see someone's thoughts on how to change the economy or business in general.
very eye opening.
The voice performance could be better. Some parts were very dry.

really good thoughts on how to change business

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the book was a little over my head for an audio book. I needed to take it slower which was something I didn't really want to do. I loved the stories he used to back up his information.

I liked the book but..

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Absolutely amazing book, helped me see the economy from a different, more humanistic perspective, despise technology that monopolises and impoverished us with fancy "disruptor" hype.
Will influence how I think about products I use, way I spend my day, and businesses I want to start. I wish every politician, economist and businessman reads it.

Eyes opening, magnificent and necessary book

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