Chaos Monkeys

At no point do you get the sense that Martínez is censoring himself beyond what he might absolutely have to do for legal reasons. He's all in. His personal life is a wreck and he shamelessly puts it out there for all the world to see and judge him by. His career in both Wall Street and Silicon Valley is full of of ups and downs and decisions that are, at best, morally ambiguous.

The writing is good. It's funny, irreverent, and shows more than a passing knowledge of history and literature. There's a ton of hard won advice and insight into not only Valley culture, but business, negotiation, and how to live the startup life. For all the self deprecation: “there was nothing badass about my career in technology. The scant success I had was due purely to happenstance, combined with being a ruthless little shit when it counted.” it's clear that his mostly upward career trajectory was due to more than just luck.

You'll learn a lot about the cutthroat world of online ads. About how decisions are made inside Facebook, and to a lesser degree, Twitter. You'll get some lessons in the mysterious machinations of His Holiness Paul Graham and vice-pontiff Chris Sacca. You'll learn how to optimize your job offer, how to read a term sheet and how to win from a position of weakness. It's information that someone who wasn't willing to sacrifice their career at the alter of full-disclosure could never tell you. I seriously doubt you'll ever read anything like this again.

Come for the schadenfreude, stay for the insight.