In Silicon Valley circa 2012, the tech industry enjoys a boom period. With sweeping narration and an ironically grandiose tone, Wiener details the expansive optimism of start-up founders and venture capitalists, aiming to insinuate their products into every corner of daily life. In contrast, Wiener leads a “fragile but agreeable life” (5) as an assistant at a literary agency in New York, oblivious to the churning startup scene. She feels Silicon Valley’s influence most acutely in her work, as “an online superstore that had gotten its start in the nineties by selling books on the World Wide Web” (6)—a thinly veiled description of Amazon.com—exerts pressure on a shrinking publishing industry. Wiener sees few opportunities for professional growth; she is newly single, having ended a relationship with a cheating older man; she moves through the city “staving off a thrumming sense of dread” (8). She longs to free herself from her precarious, stagnant situation. 

Wiener reads an article about an e-reading startup that piques her curiosity, promising a “revolution” in publishing. Advancement in her industry depends on paying one’s dues while supplementing an inadequate salary with auxiliary income; the industry is built upon its underpaid and “expendable” assistants.