Uberland: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Rules of Work

Silicon Valley technology is transforming the way we work, and Uber is leading the charge. An American startup that promised to deliver entrepreneurship for the masses through its technology, Uber instead built a new template for employment using algorithms and Internet platforms. Upending our understanding of work in the digital age, Uberland paints a future where any of us might be managed by a faceless boss.
 
The neutral language of technology masks the powerful influence algorithms have across the New Economy. Uberland chronicles the stories of drivers in more than twenty-five cities in the United States and Canada over four years, shedding light on their working conditions and providing a window into how they feel behind the wheel. The book also explores Uber’s outsized influence around the world: the billion-dollar company is now influencing everything from debates about sexual harassment and transportation regulations to racial equality campaigns and labor rights initiatives.
 
Based on award-winning technology ethnographer Alex Rosenblat’s firsthand experience of riding over 5,000 miles with Uber drivers, daily visits to online forums, and face-to-face discussions with senior Uber employees, Uberland goes beyond the headlines to reveal the complicated politics of popular technologies that are manipulating both workers and consumers.

• Temp: How American Work, American Business, and the American Dream Became Temporary
• Hustle and Gig
• Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass
• The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
• Gigged: The End of the Job and the Future of Work
• Dealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work
• Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor
• Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
• The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age
• Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber