Darryl Campbell's "Fatal Abstraction" examines how managerial decisions in the tech industry, often driven by financial metrics rather than technical expertise, lead to catastrophic failures. The book traces the roots of this "managerialism" from historical contexts to its current dominance in tech companies. Campbell uses case studies like the Boeing 737 MAX crashes and the Cambridge Analytica scandal to illustrate the consequences of this approach. He argues for empowering engineers and tech workers to resist managerial orthodoxy and prioritize ethical considerations. The book ultimately calls for a shift in power dynamics within the tech industry to prevent future disasters.
The Thinking Machine tells the story of how Nvidia evolved from a video game component manufacturer to a leader in AI hardware, revolutionizing computer architecture. It highlights Jensen Huang's pivotal role in betting on AI, transforming Nvidia into one of the world's most valuable companies. The book explores Nvidia's impact on the future of technology, including AI-driven innovations like autonomous vehicles and hyper-realistic avatars.
In 'The Engineers and the Price System', Thorstein Veblen critiques the price system and its effects on industrial society. He argues that industrial output is more dependent on managers and engineers than financiers, and he proposes a plan for a 'soviet of technicians'. The book was originally published in 1921 and reflects Veblen's views on the need for revolutionary change in managerial structures.
The Nvidia Way is a riveting history of Nvidia’s unexpected ascent to the top of the tech sector. It provides an authoritative, myth-busting account of Nvidia’s founding, its early missteps, and how the company overcame them. The book emphasizes the benefits of Nvidia’s flat organizational structure, Jensen Huang’s obsession with solving the Innovator’s Dilemma, and how Nvidia anticipated and bet on the AI wave. It offers enduring lessons for entrepreneurs and managers, showcasing Nvidia’s distinct culture and Jensen Huang’s management principles.
A tech insider explains how capitalism and software development make for such a dangerous mix.
Software was supposed to radically improve society. Outdated mechanical systems would be easily replaced; programs like PowerPoint would make information flow more freely; social media platforms like Facebook would bring people together; and generative AI would solve the world’s greatest ills. Yet in practice, few of the systems we looked to with such high hopes have lived up to their fundamental mandate. In fact, in too many cases they’ve made things worse, exposing us to immense risk at the societal and the individual levels. How did we get to this point?
In Fatal Abstraction: Why the Managerial Class Loses Control of Software (W. W. Norton, 2025), Darryl Campbell shows that the problem is “managerial software”: programs created and overseen not by engineers but by professional managers with only the most superficial knowledge of technology itself. The managerial ethos dominates the modern tech industry, from its globe-spanning giants all the way down to its trendy startups. It demands that corporate leaders should be specialists in business rather than experts in their company’s field; that they manage their companies exclusively through the abstractions of finance; and that profit margins must take priority over developing a quality product that is safe for the consumer and beneficial for society. These corporations rush the development process and package cheap, unproven, potentially dangerous software inside sleek and shiny new devices. As Campbell demonstrates, the problem with software is distinct from that of other consumer products, because of how quickly it can scale to the dimensions of the world itself, and because its inner workings resist the efforts of many professional managers to understand it with their limited technical background.
A former tech worker himself, Campbell shows how managerial software fails, and when it does what sorts of disastrous consequences ensue, from the Boeing 737 MAX crashes to a deadly self-driving car to PowerPoint propaganda, and beyond. Yet just because the tech industry is currently breaking its core promise does not mean the industry cannot change, or that the risks posed by managerial software should necessarily persist into the future. Campbell argues that the solution is tech workers with actual expertise establishing industry-wide principles of ethics and safety that corporations would be forced to follow. Fatal Abstraction is a stirring rebuke of the tech industry’s current managerial excesses, and also a hopeful glimpse of what a world shaped by good software can off.
Alfred Marcus is Edson Spencer Professor at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota.
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