by Karen Hao
First published 2025
Karen Hao thought she knew the good guys from the bad when she started covering OpenAI five years ago. The company began as a nonprofit with safety as its mission, led by Sam Altman who promised to check corporate greed in artificial intelligence. Hao covered them for MIT Technology Review, then the Wall Street Journal, then the Atlantic. She watched OpenAI change. The company needed massive compute power from scarce chips, vast datasets, cheap labor from the global South to clean data, and enormous energy and water resources. Only a handful of companies could afford to play this game. Microsoft poured billions into OpenAI. The breakneck pace accelerated. Then came the corporate drama that shocked the tech world: Altman's sudden firing by the OpenAI board, followed by the board's retreat and his triumphant return. Hao maintained deep sources throughout the industry and witnessed it all. She traveled the world to report on the extraction happening at ground level. This is her account of how naked power cloaked itself in ideology, how the forces reshaping our planet deformed everyone's judgment, and how the wheels of extraction grind on while suffering happens at the point of impact.
Genres: business, non-fiction, technology, artificial-intelligence, journalism, current-affairs
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: corporate-corruption, investigative-reporting
Setting: OpenAI, MIT Technology Review, Wall Street Journal, Atlantic
Period: 5 Years Ago
496 pages · Hardcover · Penguin Press