JS Tan

JS Tan

@js-tan.bsky.social

Book: AGAINST TECH OLIGARCHY, out Sept 15 (pre-order: https://againsttecholigarchy.com) PhD candidate @ MIT DUSP. Research on labor and the political economy of AI/cloud. https://js-tan.com

779 followers315 following153 posts

Pinned

JS Tan
@js-tan.bsky.social

My book AGAINST TECH OLIGARCHY, out Sept 15, is available for pre-order at againsttecholigarchy.com. It chronicles the rise of tech workers' activism, how they courageously came together to challenge the industry's most powerful bosses, and how their movement changed Silicon Valley forever. 1/

JS Tan reposted

Stefanie Walter
@stefwalter.bsky.social

Really enjoyed reading this eye-opening piece by @js-tan.bsky.social and @kathleenthelen.bsky.social on the transformation in the US tech industry. It helped me connect and make sense of a lot of things I have been thinking about, especially the relationship between tech and political power.

journals.sagepub.comSage Journals: Discover world-class researchSubscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

JS Tan reposted

John Duda
@johnduda.bsky.social

When I first saw the title "Against Tech Oligarchy" I expected a book full of fiery rhetoric, but what @js-tan.bsky.social & Clarissa Redwine have written is more a rigorous look at class composition, organizing, and lessons prized from defeats. Excited to welcome them to @redemmas.org on Wednesday!

JS Tan reposted

chuckmertz.bsky.social
@chuckmertz.bsky.social

Tuesday, live at 10AM CDT and podcast after @js-tan.bsky.social and Clarissa Redwine join us to discuss "Against Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance in the World’s Most Powerful Industry" (@haymarketbooks.org). Wednesday, our guest is YOU! Click below for details. www.patreon.com/thisishell/p...

patreon.comThis Week in Hell! Tech Oligrachs and You! | This Is Hell!Tuesday, our guests are JS Tan and Clarissa Redwine, authors of, "Against Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance in the World’s Most Powerful Ind
JS Tan
@js-tan.bsky.social

So excited to speak with @davekarpf.bsky.social tonight about my new book!

Dave Karpf@davekarpf.bsky.social

DC folks: Come to Politics & Prose tonight (Wharf location)! I'll be in conversation with @js-tan.bsky.social and Clarissa Redwine about their excellent new book, Against Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance in the World's Most Powerful Industry. politics-prose.com/tan-redwine-...

politics-prose.comJS Tan & Clarissa Redwine — Against Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance in the World's Most Powerful Industry - with Dave Karpf — at the WharfJS Tan is getting his PhD at MIT and formerly worked in tech. His work has been featured in The New York Times, MIT Technology Review, Dissent, Jacobin, Foreign Policy, The Baffler, and The Guardian, among other outlets.

JS Tan reposted

Dave Karpf
@davekarpf.bsky.social

DC folks: Come to Politics & Prose tonight (Wharf location)! I'll be in conversation with @js-tan.bsky.social and Clarissa Redwine about their excellent new book, Against Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance in the World's Most Powerful Industry. politics-prose.com/tan-redwine-...

politics-prose.comJS Tan & Clarissa Redwine — Against Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance in the World's Most Powerful Industry - with Dave Karpf — at the WharfJS Tan is getting his PhD at MIT and formerly worked in tech. His work has been featured in The New York Times, MIT Technology Review, Dissent, Jacobin, Foreign Policy, The Baffler, and The Guardian, among other outlets.
JS Tan
@js-tan.bsky.social

Excited to speak with @emilymbender.bsky.social and @alexhanna.bsky.social later today! Tune in!

The Distributed AI Research (DAIR) Institute@dairinstitute.bsky.social

🎧Today on the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 livestream🎧: @emilymbender.bsky.social and @alexhanna.bsky.social will be chatting to @js-tan.bsky.social and Clarissa Redwine, the authors of Against Tech Oligarchy, about tech industry labor: Tune in: Mon, Oct 5, noon Pacific twitch.tv/dair_institute

twitch.tvdair_institute - TwitchTwitch account for The Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR). — dair_institute streams live on Twitch! Check out their videos, sign up to chat, and join their community.

JS Tan reposted

Cory Dransfeldt
@coryd.dev

📖 Against Tech Oligarchy by JS Tan & Clarissa Redwine (★★★★★) #politics #nonfiction #socialscience As tech bosses fall in line with the right, tech workers are fighting back. This is the rousing inside story of their... https://www.coryd.dev/reading/books/9798888907573/against-tech-oligarchy

coryd.devAgainst Tech OligarchyAs tech bosses fall in line with the right, tech workers are fighting back. This is the rousing inside story of their movement—and the way it spawned an anti-worker backlash now reshaping the industry. After Donald Trump’s election in 2016, the tech industry sprang into action to oppose his right-wing agenda, with workers and CEOs alike joining mass mobilizations against the new president’s anti-immigrant policies. But it wasn’t long before the tech bosses started to fall in line with the new administration. In response, tens of thousands of tech workers protested against their own employers for betraying the progressive values that once defined the industry—including organizing against military contracts, walking out to protest sexism, and even launching a wave of union drives. By the early 2020s, these workers had sparked what observers were calling the tech worker movement, one that seemed capable of checking the industry’s reckless growth and reactionary drift. But as their struggle grew, so did the employers’ backlash. A new class consciousness took root among tech's billionaire owners. Hell-bent on stamping out any and all dissent, tech executives embraced Trumpism, fired organizers, and began lashing out against the “woke” ideology they blamed for turning their once loyal employees against them—and replacing the good tech jobs of the 2010s with incessant layoffs, grind culture, and a management style that treats workers as disposable. Against Tech Oligarchy provides a gripping account of this inspiring workers' movement and the rise of the hostile labor politics that define Silicon Valley today.

JS Tan reposted

Emily M. Bender
@emilymbender.bsky.social

On the next Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 livestream, we’re so excited to chat with authors of the new book, Against Tech Oligarchy! @js-tan.bsky.social and Clarissa Redwine will join me and @alexhanna.bsky.social to chat about tech industry labor: Mon, Oct 5, noon Pacific twitch.tv/dair_institute

twitch.tvdair_institute - TwitchTwitch account for The Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR). — dair_institute streams live on Twitch! Check out their videos, sign up to chat, and join their community.

JS Tan reposted

Angie Coiro
@angiecoiro.bsky.social

Via @bayareacurrent.bsky.social: I'm so getting this book from @js-tan.bsky.social & Clarissa Redwine. bayareacurrent.com/against-tech... So sad this mentality was born in the Bay Area. Our heritage includes the Summer of Love and amazing, groundbreaking art and music. Now: greed and amorality.

bayareacurrent.comThe Book Your Tech Boss Doesn't Want You to ReadIn Against Tech Oligarchy, two leading labor organizers chronicle the past decade’s tech worker movement.

JS Tan reposted

Ben Werdmuller
@werd.io

Excited to be at a book launch event for @js-tan.bsky.social and Clarissa Redwine’s book Against Tech Oligarchy, about worker resistance to the tech industry. A much needed discussion. bookshop.org/p/books/agai...

bookshop.orgAgainst Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance in the World's Most Powerful IndustryAs tech bosses fall in line with the right, tech workers are fighting back. This is the rousing inside story of their movement--and the way it spawned an anti-worker backlash now reshaping the industr...

JS Tan reposted

Gil Durán
@gilduran.com

Barnes & Noble has named "The Nerd Reich" a Best Business Book of 2026. Funny, I never thought of it as a business book. But it makes sense. It exposes a cult of apocalyptic billionaires who believe it is their destiny to destroy democracy. Buy it today! www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/the-bes...

barnesandnoble.comThe Best Business Books of 2026Enlightening memoirs, hard-hitting journalism and economic histories make up this years best business books. These are essential reads for the seasoned entrepreneur or the curious citizen who wants to...

JS Tan reposted

Open Society Foundations
@open-society.bsky.social

In 2022, @js-tan.bsky.social & Clarissa Redwine, tech workers turned union organizers, were working 14-hour days organizing a strike at Elon Musk’s newly purchased, workforce-slashed Twitter, calling every employee they could still reach. In the end, just one of the organizing committee was left.

JS Tan
@js-tan.bsky.social

Thanks for coming and for the many ways you’ve made this book possible!

Natalia Luka@nataliyan.bsky.social

@organizejs.bsky.social and Clarissa Redwine on their new book Against Tech Oligarchy ✊ This is a powerful account of the ways that tech workers have stood up to the abuse of power… and a model for how to keep organizing in the age of AI 11/10 stars ⭐️

JS Tan
@js-tan.bsky.social

When tech workers started engaging in labor & political activism in the 2010s, I read @bentarnoff.com’s writing—one of the first to write on the topic—to make sense of what was going on. It was so special to be able to have him join us at the Harvard bookstore last night!

JS Tan reposted

The Maybe
@themaybe.org

How do you build worker power in an industry where your employer can freeze the code, lock you out, and carry on?

JS Tan
@js-tan.bsky.social

In many of my book events thus far, one question keeps coming up: how should we think about tech workers, their class position, and organizing them in the AI age? I have a new essay with my friend @emilymazo.bsky.social that gets at exactly this question: www.theideasletter.org/essay/syndic...

theideasletter.orgSyndicalist ValleyThe tech-worker movement that emerged in the 2010s has been transformed by layoffs, higher interest rates, and the enormous investment flowing into AI, which have eroded the bargaining power of…
JS Tan
@js-tan.bsky.social

Excited to speak with @quinnslobodian.com and @aihathing.bsky.social at this!

Data & Society@datasociety.bsky.social

Oct 7: Join "Muskism" coauthor @quinnslobodian.com & "Against Tech Oligarchy" coauthors @js-tan.bsky.social & Clarissa Redwine to discuss the structural forces shaping tech power, and what we can learn from the tech worker movement, with D&S's @aihathing.bsky.social. datasociety.net/news-events/...

JS Tan reposted

Ben Tarnoff
@bentarnoff.com

This Monday, September 21st, I'll be talking to @js-tan.bsky.social and Clarissa Redwine at Harvard Bookstore about their new book Against Tech Oligarchy. They've written the first sustained analysis of the tech worker movement and it's a very important book www.harvard.com/event/tan-re...

harvard.comJS Tan & Clarissa Redwine at Harvard Book StoreHarvard Book Store and Boston Review welcome JS Tan—Ph.D. Candidate at MIT whose work has been featured in The New York Times, MIT Technology Review, Foreign Policy, and The Guardian—and Clarissa Redwine—Kickstarter union organizer and cofounder of the tech organizing conference Circuit Breakers—for a discussion of their new book, Against Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance in the World’s Most Powerful Industry. They will be joined in conversation by Ben Tarnoff—technologist and author of numerous books, including Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed, co-authored with Quinn Slobodian.

JS Tan reposted

JS Tan
@js-tan.bsky.social

AGAINST TECH OLIGARCHY is in stores today! We wrote this for anyone seeking to understand what the tech oligarchs have in store, how they move, how they oppress and extract. And most importantly, how resistance has formed within their own empires. Join us on tour: againsttecholigarchy.com

JS Tan reposted

The Maybe
@themaybe.org

Replying to @themaybe.org

In this special episode, @alixdunn.com spoke with @js-tan.bsky.social and Clarissa Redwine, authors of the book ‘Against Tech Oligarchy,’ about the dramatic shift in tech worker power over the last decade—and what it takes for workers to organize and fight back. www.themaybe.org/podcast/the-...

themaybe.orgThe Battle for Power Inside Big Tech: Against Tech Oligarchy w/ JS Tan & Clarissa RedwineIn their new book, Against Tech Oligarchy, authors JS Tan and Clarissa Redwine ask the question: did tech workers ever actually learn how to fight?

JS Tan reposted

Austin Kelmore
@austinkelmore.com

Today is book launch day for Against Tech Oligarchy! My friends Clarissa Redwine and JS Tan spent several years writing it and it looks incredible. They're tech organizers with a ton of experience and knowledge, so I can't wait to get the book in my hands and read it.

JS Tan@js-tan.bsky.social

AGAINST TECH OLIGARCHY is in stores today! We wrote this for anyone seeking to understand what the tech oligarchs have in store, how they move, how they oppress and extract. And most importantly, how resistance has formed within their own empires. Join us on tour: againsttecholigarchy.com

JS Tan
@js-tan.bsky.social

We're in @wired.com this morning with an excerpt from our book AGAINST TECH OLIGARCHY. Check it out- this excerpts goes into how tech worker activism and class struggle within the sector was one of the key factors in pushing tech elites to Trump and the MAGA right.

JS Tan
@js-tan.bsky.social

AGAINST TECH OLIGARCHY is in stores today! We wrote this for anyone seeking to understand what the tech oligarchs have in store, how they move, how they oppress and extract. And most importantly, how resistance has formed within their own empires. Join us on tour: againsttecholigarchy.com

JS Tan
@js-tan.bsky.social

Often we read of the tech industry through the lens of founders and execs. This book tells the story of the workers who built the industry. So, please pick up a copy *today*! The first few days of sales are critical and (unfortunately) determines much about the fate of this book.

JS Tan reposted

Boston Review
@bostonreview.bsky.social

“Dissent, once celebrated by these companies as a close cousin of disruption, was suddenly treated as a threat to be eradicated.” Now online, @js-tan.bsky.social and Clarissa Redwine look inside the failed Twitter union drive in an excerpt from their new book, AGAINST TECH OLIGARCHY:

bostonreview.netThe Rise and Fall of Tech Worker PowerCrushing our union drive at Twitter opened the floodgates for Silicon Valley’s assault on labor.