Disclosure
Disclosure is a novel by Michael Crichton, his ninth under his own name and nineteenth overall, and published in 1994. The novel is set at a fictional computer hardware manufacturing company. The plot concerns protagonist Tom Sanders and his struggle to prove that he was sexually harassed by his female employer.
Stats for nerds
1recommend
5mentions
5people
2014–2026years
20% recommend60% neutral20% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- In my experience, a LOT of company culture trickles down from the top. Some of this is by design e.g. CEO consciously and publicly rewards certain traits/behaviors. Some of this is accidental in the sense that CEOs, like many humans, have both stated and expressed preferences.
There is also this effect:
- CEO says "the lights are a bit dim in here"
- that turns into "We need to change all of the lightbulbs in here immediately!"
(this is especially true in firms where the CEO cares a lot about being proactive).
Two great posts/stories about this:
1. This post about smart employees "reading their managers minds": https://yosefk.com/blog/people-can-read-their-managers-mind....
2. In Michael Crichton's book Disclosure there is a great line: "Why did you dress casually instead of wearing a suit? Is it b/c you wanted to do that or b/c the CEO did it and you wanted to show you were part of the team??"
- agreed. Photoshop has existed for quite a long time, and often just made earlier retouching techniques easier and faster, so it's not like this is new. Read Disclosure, by Michael Crichton, for example.
- I think I see what you mean, it's just that to me the language of orcs, elves, or other fantasy concepts is necessarily any more relatable or compelling than the language of code, technology, and corporations in a modern (or futuristic) world.
My opinion as a programmer is obviously biased here, but I salivate at the thought of a cool story about coders. Have you seen Halt and Catch Fire? They managed to capture bits and pieces of computer history in a very compelling way. There was no lack of programming and techy language, but also no lack of conflict, drama, and difficult human choices. It was compelling in a totally different way than the setting and characters of something like LotR. Maybe I am overly optimistic, but I just don't see why that same feeling can't be captured in a written work rather than a TV show.
What about the myriad of existing works of science fiction that feature tech concepts heavily in their narratives? It might be futuristic technology, but I think the overall feeling of "techy language" would be similar. Or speculative fiction like Prey by Michael Crichton, or even something like Disclosure by the same, which from what I can remember is set at a hardware company?
- The Crichton amnesia effect is when you forget how susceptible Michael Crichton was to embarrassing prejudices himself. Rising Sun and Disclosure... are... just... yeesh.
- Michael Crichton's novel Disclosure had a few funny scenes about their VR system having a 'puke factor' as well...
