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26 years ago, she published a wildly prophetic book about Silicon Valley. Then she disappeared. What happened to tech writer Paulina Borsook?

wired.comWho Killed Paulina Borsook’s Career?A quarter-century ago, Borsook published a wildly prophetic, penetrating book about Silicon Valley called Cyberselfish. Then she disappeared.

WIRED

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In 2000, after years writing about Silicon Valley, Borsook published “Cyberselfish,” a book that discerned within the tech utopianism of the era a dead-eyed, woman-hating social malevolence—what the subtitle called the “Terribly Libertarian Culture of High-Tech.”

wired.comWho Killed Paulina Borsook’s Career?A quarter-century ago, Borsook published a wildly prophetic, penetrating book about Silicon Valley called Cyberselfish. Then she disappeared.

25/9/26, 2:27 pm11 reposts43 likes

WIRED

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“Cyberselfish” got warm, if occasionally baffled, reviews. It sold something like 5,000 copies in hardcover and another 2,000 in paperback, a respectable mid-list number. And then … nothing.

wired.comWho Killed Paulina Borsook’s Career?A quarter-century ago, Borsook published a wildly prophetic, penetrating book about Silicon Valley called Cyberselfish. Then she disappeared.

WIRED

@wired.com

After the book’s publication, Borsook could no longer get work. She began to wonder if she had been blacklisted. She went broke and was getting by on a GoFundMe and support from friends. She’d taken to calling the book TDB. That damn book.

wired.comWho Killed Paulina Borsook’s Career?A quarter-century ago, Borsook published a wildly prophetic, penetrating book about Silicon Valley called Cyberselfish. Then she disappeared.

WIRED

@wired.com

But last year, Borsook’s work had a renaissance on social media. Celebrated tech critics like Gil Durán of ‘The Nerd Reich’ waved ‘Cyberselfish’ around as proof that, even in the go-go days of the dotcom bubble, some people saw where things were headed. www.wired.com/story/paulin...

WIRED

@wired.com

Borsook was christened a prophet, unappreciated in her time but uniquely fitted to ours. The New York Times profiled her, calling her “The Writer Who Dared Criticize Silicon Valley.” It’s like what a friend once told her: The universe isn’t done with you yet.

wired.comWho Killed Paulina Borsook’s Career?A quarter-century ago, Borsook published a wildly prophetic, penetrating book about Silicon Valley called Cyberselfish. Then she disappeared.