Don't Be Evil: Bad Bosses Fake Promises and My Escape from Big Tech, A Biting Memoir of Twelve Years Inside Google

「這是一本想了解大科技公司，以及如何在現代美國不迷失靈魂的人之絕對必讀之作。」——《紐約客》特約撰稿人 Naomi Fry。

這部機智敏銳、黑色幽默且及時的回憶錄，記錄了一位女性在 Google 內部的十二年歷程，以及隨著公司理想從內部瓦解，她如何從圈內人轉變為異議者。

當克萊兒·史塔普頓於 2007 年加入 Google 時，感覺就像踏入了一種世界觀，而不僅是一份工作。這間公司提供的與其說是事業，不如說是一項道德計畫。在大科技公司如日中天的早期，當 Google 的內部口號還是「不作惡」（Don’t be evil）時，人們很容易相信技術不只是在改變世界——它還將修復世界。

史塔普頓很快以「Google 吟遊詩人」聞名，被拉進公司形塑自我敘事的決策室中——為包括賴利·佩吉（Larry Page）在內的領導者撰寫演講稿、部落格文章和高層通訊。隨著她晉升至日益稀有的職位，從傳奇的創意實驗室（Creative Lab）到 YouTube 行銷，她從內部協助塑造了這個神話。

然而，隨著 Google 的理想與現實之間的差距擴大，那種不和諧感變得無法忽視。2018 年，在公司處理性騷擾事件引發的憤怒中，史塔普頓協助組織了 2 萬名員工的「Google 大罷工」——這是矽谷自我形象的一次決定性破裂，《紐約時報》稱之為「科技界的轉折點」。一夜之間，她變成了員工反抗的公眾面孔，也不再是公司能輕易收編回其敘事中的角色。

《不作惡》精準、風趣且毫不留情，是一個關於權力實際運作內幕的記錄，更是一場對我們關於工作、目標與自我的敘事之深度省思。在一個將身分與工作混為一談的文化中，當科技精英模糊了私人權力與公共生活的界線時，本書質問道：你能從內部改變多少？而什麼時候又是該離開的時候？

"An absolute must-read for anyone interested not just in big tech, but in what it takes to not lose your soul in modern-day America." —Naomi Fry, staff writer at The New Yorker

A whip-smart, darkly funny, and timely memoir of one woman’s twelve years inside Google and her transformation from insider to dissenter as the company’s ideals begin to unravel from within.

When Claire Stapleton joined Google in 2007, it felt like stepping into a worldview as much as a job. The company offered not just a career, but a moral project. In the heady early years of Big Tech and when Google’s in-house slogan was “Don’t be evil,” it was easy to believe that technology wasn’t just changing the world—it was going to fix it.

Stapleton quickly became known as the “Bard of Google,” pulled into the rooms where the company narrated itself—writing speeches, blog posts, and executive communications for leaders including Larry Page. As she rose through increasingly rarefied roles, from the storied Creative Lab to YouTube marketing, she helped shape the myth from the inside.

But as the gap between Google’s ideals and its reality widened, the dissonance became impossible to ignore. In 2018, amid outrage over the company’s handling of sexual harassment, Stapleton helped organize the 20,000-employee Google Walkout—a defining rupture in Silicon Valley’s self-image that The New York Times called a “watershed moment in tech.” Overnight, she became a public face of employee revolt—and no longer someone the company could neatly fold back into its story.

Sharp, witty, and unsparing, Don’t Be Evil is an insider’s account of how power actually works—and a deeper reckoning with the stories we tell about work, purpose, and ourselves. In a culture that collapses identity into work, and as tech elites blur the line between private authority and public life, it asks: how much can you change from within—and when is it time to walk away?