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Articles by Benjamin Shestakofsky
Computer Science > Computers and Society
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Cleaning up data work: Negotiating meaning, morality, and inequality in a tech startup - Benjamin Shestakofsky, 2024
Research on artificial intelligence (AI) systems has revealed the hidden labor that enables innovation. Tech companies employ data workers who perform routinized information-processing tasks on digital assembly lines. Workers generate and annotate data to train AI systems, verify their output, and even “impersonate” AI by handling operations that are expensive to automate or which algorithms alone cannot complete (Shestakofsky, 2017; Tubaro et al., 2020).
A new book shows how venture capital influences the functioning of startups and affects employees
Venture capitalism is a manifestation of structural changes that increasingly shifted power into the hands of the financial sector, which began to cement its influence over the economy following the crisis of the 1970s. Amid increased competition, rampant inflation, and rising energy costs, American corporations’ profit margins began to stagnate.
Are these Silicon Valley power players the heroes or villains of tech?
There has been no shortage of debate about the role of arrogant CEOs and harmful algorithms in defining technological innovation. But we typically hear less about the systemic forces that generate those problems. A key culprit is venture capital, which provides early funding for entrepreneurs who want to transform neat ideas into billion-dollar companies. For a business to have any chance of “changing the world” with its technology, it must mold itself to meet the demands of these funders.
Behind the Startup by Benjamin Shestakofsky, excerpt Original
Behind the Startup: How Venture Capital Shapes Work, Innovation, and Inequality Benjamin Shestakofsky 326 pages, University of California Press, 2024 Buy the book » Startups that promise to change the world for the better often create social problems as they grow. Some critiques of the tech industry focus on founders’ outsize personalities and questionable behaviors; others emphasize the potentially harmful consequences of algorithms and AI.
How venture capitalism has transformed the way we work, according to a University of Pennsylvania professor
How venture capitalism has transformed the way we work, according to a University of Pennsylvania professor In his new book, Benjamin Shestakofsky breaks down how the so-called “shareholder revolution” changed work forever. BY Benjamin Shestakofsky Venture capitalism is a manifestation of structural changes that increasingly shifted power into the hands of the financial sector, which began to cement its influence over the economy following the crisis of the 1970s.
How venture capitalism has transformed the way we work
By Benjamin Shestakofsky8 minute Read Venture capitalism is a manifestation of structural changes that increasingly shifted power into the hands of the financial sector, which began to cement its influence over the economy following the crisis of the 1970s. Amid increased competition, rampant inflation, and rising energy costs, American corporations’ profit margins began to stagnate.
Behind the Startup: How Venture Capital Shapes Work, Innovation, and Inequality
(Author) FORMAT Buy new or used from an indie through our partner Biblio: Price Condition Seller This systematic analysis of everyday life inside a tech startup dissects the logic of venture capital and its consequences for entrepreneurs, workers, and societies. In recent years, dreams about our technological future have soured as digital platforms have undermined privacy, eroded labor rights, and weakened democratic discourse.
The Messy Reality Behind a Silicon Valley Unicorn
For 19 months, the sociologist Benjamin Shestakofsky embedded himself in an early-stage tech startup to study its organization and culture. The company went on to become one of Silicon Valley’s “unicorns,” valued at over US $1 billion. This article is adapted from an excerpt of the author’s new book, Behind the Startup: How Venture Capital Shapes Work, Innovation, and Inequality (University of California Press, 2024). The names of staff members and the company have been changed to preserve privacy.
Behind the Startup
About the Book From Our Blog About the Author Reviews Table of Contents Related Books About the Book This systematic analysis of everyday life inside a tech startup dissects the logic of venture capital and its consequences for entrepreneurs, workers, and societies. In recent years, dreams about our technological future have soured as digital platforms have undermined privacy, eroded labor rights, and weakened democratic discourse.
Making platforms work: relationship labor and the management of publics
Abstract How do digital platforms govern their users? Existing studies, with their focus on impersonal and procedural modes of governance, have largely neglected to examine the human labor through which platform companies attempt to elicit the consent of their users. This study describes the relationship labor that is systematically excised from many platforms’ accounts of what they do and missing from much of the scholarship on platform governance.
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