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Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley
How tech giants are reshaping spirituality to serve their religion of peak productivity
Silicon Valley is known for its lavish perks, intense work culture, and spiritual gurus. Work Pray Code explores how tech companies are bringing religion into the workplace in ways that are replacing traditional places of worship, blurring the line between work and religion and transforming the very nature of spiritual experience in modern life.
Over the past forty years, highly skilled workers have been devoting more time and energy to their jobs than ever before. They are also leaving churches, synagogues, and temples in droves―but they have not abandoned religion. Carolyn Chen spent more than five years in Silicon Valley, conducting a wealth of in-depth interviews and gaining unprecedented access to the best and brightest of the tech world. The result is a penetrating account of how work now satisfies workers’ needs for belonging, identity, purpose, and transcendence that religion once met. Chen argues that tech firms are offering spiritual care such as Buddhist-inspired mindfulness practices to make their employees more productive, but that our religious traditions, communities, and public sphere are paying the price.
We all want our jobs to be meaningful and fulfilling. Work Pray Code reveals what can happen when work becomes religion, and when the workplace becomes the institution that shapes our souls.
Silicon Valley is known for its lavish perks, intense work culture, and spiritual gurus. Work Pray Code explores how tech companies are bringing religion into the workplace in ways that are replacing traditional places of worship, blurring the line between work and religion and transforming the very nature of spiritual experience in modern life.
Over the past forty years, highly skilled workers have been devoting more time and energy to their jobs than ever before. They are also leaving churches, synagogues, and temples in droves―but they have not abandoned religion. Carolyn Chen spent more than five years in Silicon Valley, conducting a wealth of in-depth interviews and gaining unprecedented access to the best and brightest of the tech world. The result is a penetrating account of how work now satisfies workers’ needs for belonging, identity, purpose, and transcendence that religion once met. Chen argues that tech firms are offering spiritual care such as Buddhist-inspired mindfulness practices to make their employees more productive, but that our religious traditions, communities, and public sphere are paying the price.
We all want our jobs to be meaningful and fulfilling. Work Pray Code reveals what can happen when work becomes religion, and when the workplace becomes the institution that shapes our souls.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2022
About the author
Carolyn Chen
29 books5 followersCarolyn Chen is Associate Professor Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies, Comparative Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She received her doctorate in Sociology from UC Berkeley in 2002. Prior to teaching at Berkeley, she was Associate Professor of Sociology and Asian American Studies at Northwestern University, where she served as Director of the Asian American Studies Program.
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May 11, 2022
Summary: A sociologist studies how Silicon Valley tech firms bring religion into the workplace, replacing traditional religious institutions, blurring the line of work and religion.
I’ll just say it up front. Anyone who cares about the future of work needs to read this book. Carolyn Chen, a sociologist at UC Berkeley, spent 2013 to 2017 immersing herself in the tech world of Silicon Valley as a participant observer of the trend of incorporating religious practices into the work life of Silicon Valley companies. She did over 100 in-depth interviews and attended retreats, mindfulness sessions, and various “wellness” programs offered by companies.
What she observed was the expansion of work in these companies to fill the whole of workers lives. Many ate two to three meals a day at work, often catered by the companies, along with healthy snacks. They worked out in company gyms and walked on pathways, placed children in company daycare facilities, and learned meditation practices at company-sponsored retreats and used company-provided meditation spaces. For many of these workers, their place of work has become the source of personal, social, and spiritual fulfillment. At the same time, the involvement of many of these workers in traditional religious institutions and other community and civic institutions has waned.
What Chen chronicles at one level is corporate concern for the whole person. Yet underneath this, Chen discerns that so much of this concern for the “whole person” is driven by productivity concerns, to get the “whole person’s” devotion to the corporate mission. Workers spoke of “drinking the kool aid” in terms eerily reminiscent of cult-like groups, leading Chen to conclude that in many of these workers’ lives, their work is their religion.
The “religious” element draws from the meditative practices of Buddhism, shorn of the metaphysical and ethical content. A number of scientific and pseudo-scientific rationalizations are offered by the coaches and teachers who make up a “mindfulness” industry that offers services to these companies. Many are Zen teachers in temples who find this a way to support themselves, particularly as interest in the traditional religious institution wanes. The focus is on focus, helping people become fully attentive, self-aware, and present to their work. But Chen chillingly observes that an amoral “focus” can be turned both to life-enhancing work and to murder. For the teachers, it is a Faustian bargain, profitable contracts that vitiate the real religious content of their Buddhism–“replacing it with a universalized, Whitened, scientized, profitable, and efficient Buddhism.” Furthermore it is a thin religion that fails to challenge the unjust caste system in tech firms that offers these benefits to the elite tech workers, but not to the support staff.
Her concluding chapter addresses the dangers of what she calls “techtopia.” She describes the monopolization of human energy pulling people away from the communities where they live, from civic and religious involvements. She expresses her concern for what happen to communities when religious and civic institutions suffer. She also expresses concern for workers, who give themselves to this religion until they are used up, and really can’t leave this world, reinventing themselves as coaches when they can no longer bear the totalizing pull of the corporations. Individual “resistance” to this pull is not enough, in her view. She believes the answer is to invest in non-work communities–faith communities, neighborhoods, families, and civic associations.
Reading this work makes me think about whether what she describes in Silicon Valley is a picture of the future of work on a wider basis or whether this is a local phenomenon. I cannot help but think this is going to grow, although I also wonder how the trend to remote work resulting from the pandemic will affect this. Chen briefly touches on this, observing that remote work can actually contribute to work demanding even more of one’s life, as commute times are eliminated and one never “clocks out.” I also wonder if other industries that demand heavy investments of their workers might pursue similar strategies–for example, the health care industry.
The fusion of religion and work Chen describes occurs at a time when trust in religious institutions is at a low point and there is a “great resignation” going on among pastors and other religious leaders. Chen describes a spiritual hunger that suggests a great opportunity for religious institutions able to pivot. They can’t simply promote “butts in seats.” They have to address the big questions of meaningful life, humble and authentic communal life extending welcome and inclusion, and spiritual practices connecting the transcendent and every day life.
This work also implies an important discussion to be had about the renewal of our communities in an age of anomie, of the weakening of critical local institutions. The answer isn’t to be found in workplace or political cults. Many of our local communities are becoming combat zones that neither workplace or political cults can truly address. Only strong local institutions can do so–and this only if work is delimited to its appropriate place in our lives, allowing the time to invest in the places where we live.
____________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
I’ll just say it up front. Anyone who cares about the future of work needs to read this book. Carolyn Chen, a sociologist at UC Berkeley, spent 2013 to 2017 immersing herself in the tech world of Silicon Valley as a participant observer of the trend of incorporating religious practices into the work life of Silicon Valley companies. She did over 100 in-depth interviews and attended retreats, mindfulness sessions, and various “wellness” programs offered by companies.
What she observed was the expansion of work in these companies to fill the whole of workers lives. Many ate two to three meals a day at work, often catered by the companies, along with healthy snacks. They worked out in company gyms and walked on pathways, placed children in company daycare facilities, and learned meditation practices at company-sponsored retreats and used company-provided meditation spaces. For many of these workers, their place of work has become the source of personal, social, and spiritual fulfillment. At the same time, the involvement of many of these workers in traditional religious institutions and other community and civic institutions has waned.
What Chen chronicles at one level is corporate concern for the whole person. Yet underneath this, Chen discerns that so much of this concern for the “whole person” is driven by productivity concerns, to get the “whole person’s” devotion to the corporate mission. Workers spoke of “drinking the kool aid” in terms eerily reminiscent of cult-like groups, leading Chen to conclude that in many of these workers’ lives, their work is their religion.
The “religious” element draws from the meditative practices of Buddhism, shorn of the metaphysical and ethical content. A number of scientific and pseudo-scientific rationalizations are offered by the coaches and teachers who make up a “mindfulness” industry that offers services to these companies. Many are Zen teachers in temples who find this a way to support themselves, particularly as interest in the traditional religious institution wanes. The focus is on focus, helping people become fully attentive, self-aware, and present to their work. But Chen chillingly observes that an amoral “focus” can be turned both to life-enhancing work and to murder. For the teachers, it is a Faustian bargain, profitable contracts that vitiate the real religious content of their Buddhism–“replacing it with a universalized, Whitened, scientized, profitable, and efficient Buddhism.” Furthermore it is a thin religion that fails to challenge the unjust caste system in tech firms that offers these benefits to the elite tech workers, but not to the support staff.
Her concluding chapter addresses the dangers of what she calls “techtopia.” She describes the monopolization of human energy pulling people away from the communities where they live, from civic and religious involvements. She expresses her concern for what happen to communities when religious and civic institutions suffer. She also expresses concern for workers, who give themselves to this religion until they are used up, and really can’t leave this world, reinventing themselves as coaches when they can no longer bear the totalizing pull of the corporations. Individual “resistance” to this pull is not enough, in her view. She believes the answer is to invest in non-work communities–faith communities, neighborhoods, families, and civic associations.
Reading this work makes me think about whether what she describes in Silicon Valley is a picture of the future of work on a wider basis or whether this is a local phenomenon. I cannot help but think this is going to grow, although I also wonder how the trend to remote work resulting from the pandemic will affect this. Chen briefly touches on this, observing that remote work can actually contribute to work demanding even more of one’s life, as commute times are eliminated and one never “clocks out.” I also wonder if other industries that demand heavy investments of their workers might pursue similar strategies–for example, the health care industry.
The fusion of religion and work Chen describes occurs at a time when trust in religious institutions is at a low point and there is a “great resignation” going on among pastors and other religious leaders. Chen describes a spiritual hunger that suggests a great opportunity for religious institutions able to pivot. They can’t simply promote “butts in seats.” They have to address the big questions of meaningful life, humble and authentic communal life extending welcome and inclusion, and spiritual practices connecting the transcendent and every day life.
This work also implies an important discussion to be had about the renewal of our communities in an age of anomie, of the weakening of critical local institutions. The answer isn’t to be found in workplace or political cults. Many of our local communities are becoming combat zones that neither workplace or political cults can truly address. Only strong local institutions can do so–and this only if work is delimited to its appropriate place in our lives, allowing the time to invest in the places where we live.
____________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
June 2, 2022
When I worked as a professor at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln, after being there for a few months, during a conversation with the chair of the computer science department he asked me “have you found a church community yet?” I had not. I had, however, found a synagogue. The choice wasn’t difficult: there were only two. Nobody asked me a question like that after I moved to San Jose, which describes itself as the heart of Silicon Valley.
Why is Silicon Valley so non-religious is the question that sociologist Carolyn Chen seeks to answer here. As a tenured faculty member at UC Berkeley, Chen is a Bay Area resident herself. Like so many of us here, she’s a transplant: she grew up in Pennsylvania and Southern California, and first moved to the area in 2013 to do research on Asian religions in secular spaces.
Chen soon changed the focus of her research from Asian religions to the work culture of tech companies. She observes that people tend to become less religious when they move to the area, and are less engaged in their local communities. Tech work is totalizing, absorbing employees entire lives. Tech companies care for many of the physical needs of their employees in a way that companies in other sectors do not. Tech companies provide meditation/mindfulness (the companies use these terms interchangeably) to help their employees stay productive, but it is a neutered version of the meditation of its religious, Buddhist roots. Tech companies push up the cost of living, and provide private substitutes for public infrastructure, like shuttle busses.
Chen tries to weave these threads together into a narrative about how work substitutes for religion in the lives of tech workers in Silicon Valley. But the pieces just don’t fit together. Instead, they feel shoehorned in to support her thesis. And that’s a shame, because, as a Silicon Valley tech worker, many of the observations themselves ring true to my personal experience. Unlike Nebraska, Silicon Valley really is a very secular place, so much so that it was a plot point in an episode of HBO’s Silicon Valley. As someone who sends my children to religious school, I’m clearly in the minority at work. My employer provides amenities like free meals and shuttles. They even provide meditation rooms, access to guided meditations provided by the Mental Health Employee Resource Group, and subscriptions to the Headspace meditation app. The sky-high cost of living in Silicon Valley is a real problem for the area.
But Chen isn’t able to make the case that her thesis is the best explanation for this grab bag of observations. And her ultimate conclusion, that tech companies behave more and more like cults, just doesn’t match my own experiences working at a large tech company in Silicon Valley.
Most frustratingly, Chen doesn’t ever seem to ask the question, “are there other domains where some of these observations also hold?” Because so much of the description of the secular and insular nature of Silicon Valley tech workers applies to academics, the culture that Chen herself is immersed in!
Take this excerpt from Chen:
> Workplaces are like big and powerful magnets that attract the energy of individuals away from weaker magnets such as families, religious congregations, neighborhoods, and civic associations—institutions that we typically associate with “life” in the “work-life” binary. The magnets don’t “rob” or “extract”—words that we use to describe labor exploitation. Instead they attract the filings, monopolizing human energy by exerting an attractive rather than extractive force. By creating workplaces that meet all of life’s needs, tech companies attract the energy and devotion people would otherwise devote to other social institutions, ones that, traditionally and historically, have been sources of life fulfillment.
– Work Pray Code, p197
Compare this to an excerpt from a very different book: Robert Sommer’s sardonic 1963 book Expertland (sadly, now out of print), which describes itself as “an unrestricted inside view of the world of scientists, professors, consultants, journals, and foundations, with particular attention to the quaint customs, distinctive dilemmas, and perilous prospects”.
> Experts know very few real people. Except for several childhood friends or close relatives, the expert does not know anybody who drives a truck, runs a grocery store, or is vice-president of the local Chamber of Commerce. His only connection with these people is in some kind of service relationship; they are not his friends, colleagues, or associates. The expert feel completely out of place at Lion’s or Fish and Game meeting. If he is compelled to attend such gatherings, he immediately gravitates to any other citizen of Expertland who is present… He has no roots, no firm allegiances, and nothing to gain or lose in local elections… Because he doesn’t vote in local elections, join service clubs, or own the house he lives in, outsiders often feel that the expert is not a good citizen.
– Expertland, pp 2-3
Chen acknowledges that work is taking over the lives of all high-skilled professionals, not just tech workers. But I found work-life balance to be much worse in academia than at a Silicon Valley tech company! To borrow a phrase from the New Testament, And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Why is Silicon Valley so non-religious is the question that sociologist Carolyn Chen seeks to answer here. As a tenured faculty member at UC Berkeley, Chen is a Bay Area resident herself. Like so many of us here, she’s a transplant: she grew up in Pennsylvania and Southern California, and first moved to the area in 2013 to do research on Asian religions in secular spaces.
Chen soon changed the focus of her research from Asian religions to the work culture of tech companies. She observes that people tend to become less religious when they move to the area, and are less engaged in their local communities. Tech work is totalizing, absorbing employees entire lives. Tech companies care for many of the physical needs of their employees in a way that companies in other sectors do not. Tech companies provide meditation/mindfulness (the companies use these terms interchangeably) to help their employees stay productive, but it is a neutered version of the meditation of its religious, Buddhist roots. Tech companies push up the cost of living, and provide private substitutes for public infrastructure, like shuttle busses.
Chen tries to weave these threads together into a narrative about how work substitutes for religion in the lives of tech workers in Silicon Valley. But the pieces just don’t fit together. Instead, they feel shoehorned in to support her thesis. And that’s a shame, because, as a Silicon Valley tech worker, many of the observations themselves ring true to my personal experience. Unlike Nebraska, Silicon Valley really is a very secular place, so much so that it was a plot point in an episode of HBO’s Silicon Valley. As someone who sends my children to religious school, I’m clearly in the minority at work. My employer provides amenities like free meals and shuttles. They even provide meditation rooms, access to guided meditations provided by the Mental Health Employee Resource Group, and subscriptions to the Headspace meditation app. The sky-high cost of living in Silicon Valley is a real problem for the area.
But Chen isn’t able to make the case that her thesis is the best explanation for this grab bag of observations. And her ultimate conclusion, that tech companies behave more and more like cults, just doesn’t match my own experiences working at a large tech company in Silicon Valley.
Most frustratingly, Chen doesn’t ever seem to ask the question, “are there other domains where some of these observations also hold?” Because so much of the description of the secular and insular nature of Silicon Valley tech workers applies to academics, the culture that Chen herself is immersed in!
Take this excerpt from Chen:
> Workplaces are like big and powerful magnets that attract the energy of individuals away from weaker magnets such as families, religious congregations, neighborhoods, and civic associations—institutions that we typically associate with “life” in the “work-life” binary. The magnets don’t “rob” or “extract”—words that we use to describe labor exploitation. Instead they attract the filings, monopolizing human energy by exerting an attractive rather than extractive force. By creating workplaces that meet all of life’s needs, tech companies attract the energy and devotion people would otherwise devote to other social institutions, ones that, traditionally and historically, have been sources of life fulfillment.
– Work Pray Code, p197
Compare this to an excerpt from a very different book: Robert Sommer’s sardonic 1963 book Expertland (sadly, now out of print), which describes itself as “an unrestricted inside view of the world of scientists, professors, consultants, journals, and foundations, with particular attention to the quaint customs, distinctive dilemmas, and perilous prospects”.
> Experts know very few real people. Except for several childhood friends or close relatives, the expert does not know anybody who drives a truck, runs a grocery store, or is vice-president of the local Chamber of Commerce. His only connection with these people is in some kind of service relationship; they are not his friends, colleagues, or associates. The expert feel completely out of place at Lion’s or Fish and Game meeting. If he is compelled to attend such gatherings, he immediately gravitates to any other citizen of Expertland who is present… He has no roots, no firm allegiances, and nothing to gain or lose in local elections… Because he doesn’t vote in local elections, join service clubs, or own the house he lives in, outsiders often feel that the expert is not a good citizen.
– Expertland, pp 2-3
Chen acknowledges that work is taking over the lives of all high-skilled professionals, not just tech workers. But I found work-life balance to be much worse in academia than at a Silicon Valley tech company! To borrow a phrase from the New Testament, And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
November 7, 2022
Fascinating exploration of how tech companies in the Bay Area, from ten-person start-ups to the usual Big Tech suspects have incorporated, adapted, and coopted (and many other -ted suffixed verbs) spiritual and religious practices (particularly from Asian religions, more particularly from Buddhism, and most particularly "meditation" or "mindfulness") with an eye to increased efficiency and productivity.
Might be better subtitled "When Work Becomes Sacred in Silicon Valley." That would cover some of the frustrations other reviewers have with Chen's potentially imprecise use of "religion" and "cult" to describe SV work culture. (She actually notes in the appendix that "sacred" is a better description of work's status in SV, so it's odd that she opts for the language of "religion" in both the title and the book).
The chapter "Killing the Buddha" is awesome. Chen distinguishes five ways that SV has coopted Buddhism. She coins them "Hidden, Whitened, Scientific, Bottom-Line, and On-the-Go Buddhism." The first four ways are necessary for Buddhism to thrive in the tech world because they make it "universal, normal, legitimate, and profitable." Buddhism becomes buddhism: a set of practices that belong to anyone, without the "baggage" of the supernatural that Westerners have moved beyond, with empirically proven health and work benefits, and with a high return on investment. The fifth distortion, "On-the-Go," is for Chen the true desacralization of Buddhism, as it "frees" Buddhism from any ties to practice, place, even time. Commodify and go. Meditate and code.
One of the most fascinating distortions is one company's prayer labyrinth. Typically, a religious adherent would walk and pray a labyrinth, slowly winding their way to the center, where the might be a stone with a central icon (cross, lotus, crescent), and then wind their way back out into the world. This one company follows the pattern, except, at the center? The company logo. 👻
Makes some strong claims in the conclusion that, even if I might agree, don't seem warranted by the evidence laid out here. Chen refers to the "morally bereft religion of work," but it's not evident from the book that the workplace is religiously barren soil, just that SV has failed to meaningfully wed the two.
Might be better subtitled "When Work Becomes Sacred in Silicon Valley." That would cover some of the frustrations other reviewers have with Chen's potentially imprecise use of "religion" and "cult" to describe SV work culture. (She actually notes in the appendix that "sacred" is a better description of work's status in SV, so it's odd that she opts for the language of "religion" in both the title and the book).
The chapter "Killing the Buddha" is awesome. Chen distinguishes five ways that SV has coopted Buddhism. She coins them "Hidden, Whitened, Scientific, Bottom-Line, and On-the-Go Buddhism." The first four ways are necessary for Buddhism to thrive in the tech world because they make it "universal, normal, legitimate, and profitable." Buddhism becomes buddhism: a set of practices that belong to anyone, without the "baggage" of the supernatural that Westerners have moved beyond, with empirically proven health and work benefits, and with a high return on investment. The fifth distortion, "On-the-Go," is for Chen the true desacralization of Buddhism, as it "frees" Buddhism from any ties to practice, place, even time. Commodify and go. Meditate and code.
One of the most fascinating distortions is one company's prayer labyrinth. Typically, a religious adherent would walk and pray a labyrinth, slowly winding their way to the center, where the might be a stone with a central icon (cross, lotus, crescent), and then wind their way back out into the world. This one company follows the pattern, except, at the center? The company logo. 👻
Makes some strong claims in the conclusion that, even if I might agree, don't seem warranted by the evidence laid out here. Chen refers to the "morally bereft religion of work," but it's not evident from the book that the workplace is religiously barren soil, just that SV has failed to meaningfully wed the two.
August 11, 2022
Precision of language please, Jonas!
My biggest issue with this is that a book centered around a thesis about religion needs to define, or attempt to define, what religion is. I found this book lacking in definitions, and as a consequence made it hard for me to get much out of the argument.
The chapter "Killing the Buddha" was interesting, particularly the contrast between the concepts of mindfulness and wrong concentration.
What really got me at the beginning was her use of "Reformed" to talk about, I assume, Reform Judaism, which is definitely absolutely not called "Reformed". She also talked about an interviewee's Reformed synagogue on 86th St in Manhattan and I looked at all the synagogues on 86th (there are a lot) and none was Reform. So maybe she was talking about some other denomination that I don't know.
Then later what really really got me was a part where it was first quoting a woman tech worker talking about how all the men are like "Asperger's", going on to talk about how anecdotally a lot of people who work in tech are "on the spectrum", then in a footnote she said she didn't meet many people who she "considered to be on the spectrum". First of all, Asperger's is an outdated term, Asperger was a Nazi collaborator, if people want to use the term to describe themselves that seems okay, but she should not use it in published scholarship like this (outside of when she's quoting someone). She somehow never used the word autism. Second, you can't just meet someone and determine if they have autism (or are "on the spectrum" as she says), and suggesting this seems ignorant and problematic. Also...don't use "on the spectrum" as a shorthand when what you really mean is awkward/aloof/rude/not socially skilled/male computer programmer.
Durkheim and Elementary Forms of Religious Life were mentioned on page 188. Why did he not come up earlier? That might have helped provide some useful theoretical background. I might name my second cat Durkheim.
My biggest issue with this is that a book centered around a thesis about religion needs to define, or attempt to define, what religion is. I found this book lacking in definitions, and as a consequence made it hard for me to get much out of the argument.
The chapter "Killing the Buddha" was interesting, particularly the contrast between the concepts of mindfulness and wrong concentration.
What really got me at the beginning was her use of "Reformed" to talk about, I assume, Reform Judaism, which is definitely absolutely not called "Reformed". She also talked about an interviewee's Reformed synagogue on 86th St in Manhattan and I looked at all the synagogues on 86th (there are a lot) and none was Reform. So maybe she was talking about some other denomination that I don't know.
Then later what really really got me was a part where it was first quoting a woman tech worker talking about how all the men are like "Asperger's", going on to talk about how anecdotally a lot of people who work in tech are "on the spectrum", then in a footnote she said she didn't meet many people who she "considered to be on the spectrum". First of all, Asperger's is an outdated term, Asperger was a Nazi collaborator, if people want to use the term to describe themselves that seems okay, but she should not use it in published scholarship like this (outside of when she's quoting someone). She somehow never used the word autism. Second, you can't just meet someone and determine if they have autism (or are "on the spectrum" as she says), and suggesting this seems ignorant and problematic. Also...don't use "on the spectrum" as a shorthand when what you really mean is awkward/aloof/rude/not socially skilled/male computer programmer.
Durkheim and Elementary Forms of Religious Life were mentioned on page 188. Why did he not come up earlier? That might have helped provide some useful theoretical background. I might name my second cat Durkheim.
June 20, 2022
Was this book parody? A treatise on irony? When the author literally quotes Marx to pillory the rise of workplace spirituality replacing good old fashioned traditional religious spirituality, I need to make sure I'm not being punked.
Too long. Too un-self-aware. Too full of unintentional comedy.
Too long. Too un-self-aware. Too full of unintentional comedy.
January 21, 2024
In Work Pray Code, Chen tries very doggedly to make the argument that Silicon Valley tech companies are 1) replacing the role of traditional Western religions (read: mostly Christian denominations) of providing meaning and purpose to their elite employees' lives, 2) doing this by coopting and diluting ideas and practices from Eastern religions, like meditation and mindfulness, and 3) this is terrible thing for society.
I acknowledge the merits of point 1, but it is also a fact that more Americans regardless of job industry and socioeconomic status have been leaving behind active participation in faith groups in recent decades (see Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America by Stephen Bullivant), so we can't blame Silicon Valley for that.
I also don't view point 1 as a bad thing. While Chen seems to vilify how tech companies encourage their elite employees to engage in self-growth and self-actualization exercises that help the employees become more productive and in turn help the companies become more productive and lucrative, she also acknowledges later in the book that most tech workers change jobs every 3-5 years, so job perks can be seen as a mutual quid pro quo, in that at the time of employer-employee separation, the company has benefited profitably from their work and the employee has benefitted personally from the company.
Regarding point 2, I do understand how Chen thinks this is ethically murky. I do think Chen makes a good point about how the California counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s that first embraced Eastern spirituality laid the groundwork for some of the same philosophies have trickled down in a more sanitized fashion to be applied into many workplaces (not just in the tech sector). However, I don't see it as morally problematic or cultural appropriative if a person who is not of Buddhist or Hindu faith or Asian ancestry uses mindfulness, meditation or yoga as part of their toolkit for coping with stress or work on their flexibility.
Regarding point 3, I largely disagree.
I acknowledge the merits of point 1, but it is also a fact that more Americans regardless of job industry and socioeconomic status have been leaving behind active participation in faith groups in recent decades (see Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America by Stephen Bullivant), so we can't blame Silicon Valley for that.
I also don't view point 1 as a bad thing. While Chen seems to vilify how tech companies encourage their elite employees to engage in self-growth and self-actualization exercises that help the employees become more productive and in turn help the companies become more productive and lucrative, she also acknowledges later in the book that most tech workers change jobs every 3-5 years, so job perks can be seen as a mutual quid pro quo, in that at the time of employer-employee separation, the company has benefited profitably from their work and the employee has benefitted personally from the company.
Regarding point 2, I do understand how Chen thinks this is ethically murky. I do think Chen makes a good point about how the California counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s that first embraced Eastern spirituality laid the groundwork for some of the same philosophies have trickled down in a more sanitized fashion to be applied into many workplaces (not just in the tech sector). However, I don't see it as morally problematic or cultural appropriative if a person who is not of Buddhist or Hindu faith or Asian ancestry uses mindfulness, meditation or yoga as part of their toolkit for coping with stress or work on their flexibility.
Regarding point 3, I largely disagree.
July 12, 2022
This book quickly became one of my favorites of 2022. I’ve been really interested in sociology, and Carolyn Chen killed it with this book discussing how work has become the new religion. She specifically focuses on tech companies in Silicon Valley, but what she discusses is widespread, especially as so many of us work from home. Basically Carolyn shows how although there are more atheists, we’re making work our new religion. Work is what’s giving us meaning and purpose in life, and we make it a big part of our identity. Most importantly, she explains how companies are capitalizing on this.
I think my favorite part of the book is that Chen doesn’t really say whether this is a good or bad thing. I almost wanted her to give more opinions when discussing this, but I’m glad she didn’t because it makes the reader ask important questions. For example, if we’re learning to take care of our mental health at work or finding meaning through what we do, is that bad? What if the motives of our employer is simply to make us happier at work so we work harder to make them money? Are we being manipulated and exploited, or would it be better if we took the risk to find meaning and purpose elsewhere? What if we didn’t find the same benefits outside of work and just isolated more?
I could go on forever about this book and the interesting topics. The one place where Carolyn Chen has some criticisms and points to some vocal critics is toward the end of the book when she discusses the co-opting of meditation and Buddhism. As someone who was once a huge fan of how widespread mindfulness had become but learned the problems with it from McMindfulness by Ron Purser, I’m still torn on the topic. One thing for sure is that employers could be doing a better job with all of these things from mindfulness to bringing in self-help speakers and cultivating certain types of workplace culture.
Anywho, go get this book. It’s important, and I don’t think many people realize what’s going on. Whether the manipulation of workers for profit is good or bad because we may benefit, it’s still a manipulation that we need to be aware of.
I think my favorite part of the book is that Chen doesn’t really say whether this is a good or bad thing. I almost wanted her to give more opinions when discussing this, but I’m glad she didn’t because it makes the reader ask important questions. For example, if we’re learning to take care of our mental health at work or finding meaning through what we do, is that bad? What if the motives of our employer is simply to make us happier at work so we work harder to make them money? Are we being manipulated and exploited, or would it be better if we took the risk to find meaning and purpose elsewhere? What if we didn’t find the same benefits outside of work and just isolated more?
I could go on forever about this book and the interesting topics. The one place where Carolyn Chen has some criticisms and points to some vocal critics is toward the end of the book when she discusses the co-opting of meditation and Buddhism. As someone who was once a huge fan of how widespread mindfulness had become but learned the problems with it from McMindfulness by Ron Purser, I’m still torn on the topic. One thing for sure is that employers could be doing a better job with all of these things from mindfulness to bringing in self-help speakers and cultivating certain types of workplace culture.
Anywho, go get this book. It’s important, and I don’t think many people realize what’s going on. Whether the manipulation of workers for profit is good or bad because we may benefit, it’s still a manipulation that we need to be aware of.
March 22, 2023
It was a very interesting read. Chen is locked and loaded with great supporting arguments in each chapter - she organizes the book by making an argument in each chapter and throwing in a variety of anecdotes, case studies, and research. For example, in the first chapter she makes the case that a lot of people who were previously religious or participated in religion stop doing that once they move to Silicon Valley. It makes you question: “Well… why?” And Chen is ready to go with a variety of examples to convey the story of why.
It’s easy to digest though and not too academic. I listened to it as an audio book, which was a good choice because I followed along like it was a story.
It definitely made me a little cynical of large companies and tech companies. But I think a healthy dose of cynicism keeps us in check.
It’s easy to digest though and not too academic. I listened to it as an audio book, which was a good choice because I followed along like it was a story.
It definitely made me a little cynical of large companies and tech companies. But I think a healthy dose of cynicism keeps us in check.
November 11, 2022
As a recovering burnout victim with hours of mindfulness and third wave cbt under my belt this books hit the right spot. I live in Stockholm, Sweden, which treats Silicon Valley and americanism as the enlighted religion. Everything from the FAANG companies are seen as succesful, desirable and trustworthy. May it be snack bars, all hands or agile restructuring every other quarter.
The natural next step is certainly to ram this "work pray code" mentality and reading Carolyn Chen's worked almost as and antidote for the buddhaless meditations between standups and retros at work.
It's a worth read for every modern worker in this weird economized culture we try to maintain!
The natural next step is certainly to ram this "work pray code" mentality and reading Carolyn Chen's worked almost as and antidote for the buddhaless meditations between standups and retros at work.
It's a worth read for every modern worker in this weird economized culture we try to maintain!
August 12, 2023
The thesis is that, for Silicon Valley tech employees, work has become the main source of meaning, crowding out traditional religions, community, and even family. Tech companies provide transport, food, wellness and self-actualization, thereby channelling more and more of their employees' effort.
The book front-loads the religious aspect, but there's more to it than that. Ultimately it's about a polarisation in employment, with high-value employees being given whatever will make them more productive, while everyone else scrapes by in an environment which has been sucked dry of amenities because the people with most leverage are having all their needs serviced inside their charmed workplaces and, what's more, have convinced themselves that that's all for the greater good.
The book front-loads the religious aspect, but there's more to it than that. Ultimately it's about a polarisation in employment, with high-value employees being given whatever will make them more productive, while everyone else scrapes by in an environment which has been sucked dry of amenities because the people with most leverage are having all their needs serviced inside their charmed workplaces and, what's more, have convinced themselves that that's all for the greater good.
May 30, 2022
As a software engineer (albeit one that doesn't live/work in the Bay Area) I'm glad there's scholarship being done on Silicon Valley culture and the particular way that tech companies treat their employees. I didn't agree with all of Chen's takeaways here but the situations she describes are pretty consistent with what I've seen in the industry. Business practices that centralize employees' time at the office and country-club-esque amenities built to try to squeeze more work out of employees are spreading beyond the tech hot-spots Chen notes (and even to other industries due to the corporate veneration of employers like Google) and I'm worried not enough people are as worried about the ramifications of that as myself and some of my other software engineer friends are. So I'm glad this is out there and I hope people pay attention as tech industry culture continues to "disrupt" labor relations.
September 9, 2023
usually hate books about tech. but. what a banger
April 7, 2022
Great study! I found it very insightful that it notes the fundamental human religious impulses. When humans no longer participate in organized religion, they channel these same impulses to other sectors, such as their jobs. We see this same impulse revealed now among some in the tech world world where they develop sociologically tight knit communities where they find meaning, purpose, friendship, hope, and transformation in their jobs!
August 7, 2022
Giving this 5 stars just because it sparked so much conversation with my coworkers after a few of us read it together.
So many of the descriptions of specific Silicon Valley tech companies and Bay Area culture felt so accurate to me. I was especially spooked by the concept of “Corporate maternalism”
“where companies provide for the personal care of their employees to make them happy, healthy, and (therefore) productive”
“Corporate materialism monetizes the nonproductive parts of life that the busy tech worker otherwise has no time for - eating, exercising, rest, hobbies, spirituality, and friendships - and makes them part of work.”
I also thought the history and context of eastern religions and the rise of “mindfulness” as a religiously-sanitized version of buddhism to sell it to companies and boost productivity was fascinating. Spiritual migrants to California in the 60s and 70s -> commoditization of mindfulness practices to tech execs in order to spread religious practices without stigma and make a livable income
Mindfulness = religious rituals of Buddhism and other religious traditions with the religious messaging, cultural context and moral reflection stripped out (this makes mindfulness more marketable)
This book wasn’t super organized with regards to the central thesis. It read more like a series of stories / interviews with a somewhat alarmist tone. I don’t think tech is turning work into a religion, but I think tech is using religious practices to encourage increasingly less religious employees to work harder. The milder statement “work is replacing religion” sounds more accurate.
The last chapter brought it together with a dramatic “tech companies take resources away from local communities without giving back.” I think, at the end of the day, it’s not tech creating these issues, but a byproduct of capitalism and the drive for profit and productivity. Tech created this image that it was different from other industries by creating fun workspaces and company missions that seem to be all sunshine and daisies in meaningful efforts to change the world. And it uses these exciting missions, sense of community, great benefits/perks to recruit employees. Taken to an extreme, and when it is all contained in the same geographical area, it siphons resources away from the public.
I think I’ve had unease towards the Bay Area for a long time since I first worked here and increasingly towards tech, and this book offers a lot of context on how tech has shaped the Bay Area. Basically, as someone living in the tech bubble, this seemed like an accurate description of the bubble.
Other disorganized thoughts
- Lack of civic engagement and political apathy of tech workers (why invest in local community if all your needs are met by work?)
- Having the feeling that your workplace cares for your wellbeing -> more productive workers
- Corporate maternalism -> creates expectations that workplace should care for you -> when company does not, people feel righteously upset
- Empathy and connection help designers build better products -> use meditation and mindfulness practices to train tech workers to have more compassion and empathy
- Tech migrants primarily finding community through work, formerly religious migrants have trouble finding suitable religious communities in the Bay Area
So many of the descriptions of specific Silicon Valley tech companies and Bay Area culture felt so accurate to me. I was especially spooked by the concept of “Corporate maternalism”
“where companies provide for the personal care of their employees to make them happy, healthy, and (therefore) productive”
“Corporate materialism monetizes the nonproductive parts of life that the busy tech worker otherwise has no time for - eating, exercising, rest, hobbies, spirituality, and friendships - and makes them part of work.”
I also thought the history and context of eastern religions and the rise of “mindfulness” as a religiously-sanitized version of buddhism to sell it to companies and boost productivity was fascinating. Spiritual migrants to California in the 60s and 70s -> commoditization of mindfulness practices to tech execs in order to spread religious practices without stigma and make a livable income
Mindfulness = religious rituals of Buddhism and other religious traditions with the religious messaging, cultural context and moral reflection stripped out (this makes mindfulness more marketable)
This book wasn’t super organized with regards to the central thesis. It read more like a series of stories / interviews with a somewhat alarmist tone. I don’t think tech is turning work into a religion, but I think tech is using religious practices to encourage increasingly less religious employees to work harder. The milder statement “work is replacing religion” sounds more accurate.
The last chapter brought it together with a dramatic “tech companies take resources away from local communities without giving back.” I think, at the end of the day, it’s not tech creating these issues, but a byproduct of capitalism and the drive for profit and productivity. Tech created this image that it was different from other industries by creating fun workspaces and company missions that seem to be all sunshine and daisies in meaningful efforts to change the world. And it uses these exciting missions, sense of community, great benefits/perks to recruit employees. Taken to an extreme, and when it is all contained in the same geographical area, it siphons resources away from the public.
I think I’ve had unease towards the Bay Area for a long time since I first worked here and increasingly towards tech, and this book offers a lot of context on how tech has shaped the Bay Area. Basically, as someone living in the tech bubble, this seemed like an accurate description of the bubble.
Other disorganized thoughts
- Lack of civic engagement and political apathy of tech workers (why invest in local community if all your needs are met by work?)
- Having the feeling that your workplace cares for your wellbeing -> more productive workers
- Corporate maternalism -> creates expectations that workplace should care for you -> when company does not, people feel righteously upset
- Empathy and connection help designers build better products -> use meditation and mindfulness practices to train tech workers to have more compassion and empathy
- Tech migrants primarily finding community through work, formerly religious migrants have trouble finding suitable religious communities in the Bay Area
June 29, 2022
I’m not a Silicon Valley employee, but I have worked for companies based there, and for software companies who operate in the same general manner. So I recognized the lengths that companies are going through to generate more output from their labor inputs. And one way to do this is to squeeze out those spiritual needs of their employees and manage them as part of their optimization of work time. The book gives examples of this. It seems to me the author couldn’t decide whether this would be a how-to book or more of a scholarly description of the move to push scrubbed Eastern religion to their employees. The writing wavered between these two goals, but I believe the how-to content wasn’t complete enough. It ends up being a reasonable description of the use of watered down Eastern religious practices such as meditation. Interesting, but I didn’t read anything I hadn’t already seen in practice in non-Silicon Valley employers. Scariest concept – HR departments are now studying cults to try to duplicate their ability to attract and maintain members. I will be avoiding any Kool-Aid in company meetings from now on.
May 17, 2023
In Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in the Silicon Valley, Carolyn Chen asks us (p. 196), “What happens to society when its members worship work?” Then she responds, “Silicon Valley offers us an answer.” The answer is, on the one hand, enlightening, and on the other hand, terrifying. It’s enlightening because it provides us with much-needed insight into the spirituality of the so-called “Nones” (i.e. those who answer the question “With what religion do you affiliate?” with the answer “none”). When people hear “Nones” they may think of people with a religious void, or people who claim to be “spiritual-but-not-religious” (which is a claim founded on a misplaced concreteness regarding the word “religion”). But few “Nones” are religiously apathetic; they place the energies that others may devote to going to a church, synagogue, mosque, temple, etc., to something else but with similar vigor and intent.
Read more at: https://brianleport.home.blog/2022/06...
Read more at: https://brianleport.home.blog/2022/06...
March 11, 2023
I wanted it but I don’t like it. Now I don’t want it anymore but I wish I still want it. Anyone?
You bet it’s perplexing when everything revolve around self-realization. It kinda reinforced some “guessing” to see that work won the competition against other religious institutions and families in social function, soul is the most essential capital and work place can be directly related to trauma-processing.
Read it somewhere about a work from Weber “the disappearance of the gods does not signify a concomitant disappearance of the need for meaning or of the concern that oral imperatives should have a transcendent basis.”
Modernity is a dynamic process and it is traumatizingly unstable. We want our new sense of loss taken care of. We want out newly-found liberty unthreatened. We want the old wisdom for self-realization. I’m all for it.
In the most advanced (maybe) society where the privatization of everything including customized life-journey and self-made religion in every dimension wins, what would happen?
I say worse isolation.
One theory is that modern day religion has transformed its traditional position of otherworldly to the political sphere. Modern day religion relies more on private beliefs and still serves as the self-fulfillment tool and serves to define a science of morality while the supernatural lose its credibility.
When the continuity function of tradition is no longer valued, religion would still exist beyond folklore.
The dominant religion can still offer individual ferment but more than ever it has lost the functionality of informing organization of the individual activity — it has become more fragmented than before, relying on private practice and belief in different level. While for others, religion has been replaced by aesthetics, family, sexuality and such secular pursuits. And for the trend of individualism and self-realization, religion in politics can provide a sacred character for the self-hood culture. And it also serves the fragmented demands for meaning. And continuous religious memory will always be subject to recurring construction since the heritage of collective memory has endured the selective process but undoubtedly it’s fading.
Totally irrelevant stress talk:
I casted real-life projections into this book. As a first-gen Chinese American I couldn’t help. Every group has a popular dream onto which many eyeballed longingly when hanging by the sideline, into which many are eventually drown. So many CS major, so many math major that hate what they do viscerally, but still they would rather not change, because of the lack of guidance, resource. They don’t feel like having a shot at any other things. When you look up for an example, it would be harder to feel it if you are gonna be led by someone that doesn’t look like you. Really? That’s the model minority myth. Do or die attitude. In real life all the extreme and self-isolation that we don’t talk about. All the yet to be consumed anti-depressant pills by the new Asian American.
That’s totally irrelevant i know
That’s some fucked-up shit to think about in your early twenties I know
You bet it’s perplexing when everything revolve around self-realization. It kinda reinforced some “guessing” to see that work won the competition against other religious institutions and families in social function, soul is the most essential capital and work place can be directly related to trauma-processing.
Read it somewhere about a work from Weber “the disappearance of the gods does not signify a concomitant disappearance of the need for meaning or of the concern that oral imperatives should have a transcendent basis.”
Modernity is a dynamic process and it is traumatizingly unstable. We want our new sense of loss taken care of. We want out newly-found liberty unthreatened. We want the old wisdom for self-realization. I’m all for it.
In the most advanced (maybe) society where the privatization of everything including customized life-journey and self-made religion in every dimension wins, what would happen?
I say worse isolation.
One theory is that modern day religion has transformed its traditional position of otherworldly to the political sphere. Modern day religion relies more on private beliefs and still serves as the self-fulfillment tool and serves to define a science of morality while the supernatural lose its credibility.
When the continuity function of tradition is no longer valued, religion would still exist beyond folklore.
The dominant religion can still offer individual ferment but more than ever it has lost the functionality of informing organization of the individual activity — it has become more fragmented than before, relying on private practice and belief in different level. While for others, religion has been replaced by aesthetics, family, sexuality and such secular pursuits. And for the trend of individualism and self-realization, religion in politics can provide a sacred character for the self-hood culture. And it also serves the fragmented demands for meaning. And continuous religious memory will always be subject to recurring construction since the heritage of collective memory has endured the selective process but undoubtedly it’s fading.
Totally irrelevant stress talk:
I casted real-life projections into this book. As a first-gen Chinese American I couldn’t help. Every group has a popular dream onto which many eyeballed longingly when hanging by the sideline, into which many are eventually drown. So many CS major, so many math major that hate what they do viscerally, but still they would rather not change, because of the lack of guidance, resource. They don’t feel like having a shot at any other things. When you look up for an example, it would be harder to feel it if you are gonna be led by someone that doesn’t look like you. Really? That’s the model minority myth. Do or die attitude. In real life all the extreme and self-isolation that we don’t talk about. All the yet to be consumed anti-depressant pills by the new Asian American.
That’s totally irrelevant i know
That’s some fucked-up shit to think about in your early twenties I know
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 6, 2022
I was pretty excited about this book as I thought the basic premise was right, but it wound up taking a different route than I expected. The author spends a long time fixated on workplace meditation and mindfulness classes and (correctly, in my view) points out the various ways these classes are kind of a stripped down, purged version of Buddhism. These classes have been made palatable for a secular audience that can't bear the thought of actual religion. This winds up being the key "gotcha" of the book. I was a little deflated by this. I think she's right, but I'm not sure it's such a huge problem that workplaces gently nudge their employees towards mindfulness classes because they think the employees might be more focused or productive. At times it seemed like the author was mocking people who try different diets and lifestyle habits to improve their health.
I am personally much more skeptical of the manner in which some tech companies employ religious imagery, religious slogans, and religious style propaganda (like posters) to motivate a largely secular workforce. This goes on while unions, religious communities, civic organizations, and other forms of community continue to fray. A world in which the workplace is the primary way that people get their sense of higher purpose would be a terrible place to live, and we should do everything we can to halt its progress. The author touched on this topic a bit, but didn't go too deep.
The conclusion of the book included the bizarre insinuation that the tech industry has caused California's housing crisis. There was no mention of Prop 13, zoning laws, or the (sometimes explicitly racist!) vitriol that long-term property owners in California aim at newcomers. In these omissions, the author betrayed a disappointing bias. That said, I did appreciate her description of how many people employed in the tech industry are civically disengaged and do not care about local politics. I have watched this play out in my own social circles in Silicon Valley, where many people will complain about social problems (homelessness, housing, cleanliness, safety) but will then admit they forgot to vote and don't even understand how San Francisco's board of supervisors works. Like the author, I am extremely, extremely unsympathetic towards people who do not put in the work to understand their local government.
One last note: the author appeared to insinuate that Buddhism is from China at one point in the middle of the book. It's from India.
I am personally much more skeptical of the manner in which some tech companies employ religious imagery, religious slogans, and religious style propaganda (like posters) to motivate a largely secular workforce. This goes on while unions, religious communities, civic organizations, and other forms of community continue to fray. A world in which the workplace is the primary way that people get their sense of higher purpose would be a terrible place to live, and we should do everything we can to halt its progress. The author touched on this topic a bit, but didn't go too deep.
The conclusion of the book included the bizarre insinuation that the tech industry has caused California's housing crisis. There was no mention of Prop 13, zoning laws, or the (sometimes explicitly racist!) vitriol that long-term property owners in California aim at newcomers. In these omissions, the author betrayed a disappointing bias. That said, I did appreciate her description of how many people employed in the tech industry are civically disengaged and do not care about local politics. I have watched this play out in my own social circles in Silicon Valley, where many people will complain about social problems (homelessness, housing, cleanliness, safety) but will then admit they forgot to vote and don't even understand how San Francisco's board of supervisors works. Like the author, I am extremely, extremely unsympathetic towards people who do not put in the work to understand their local government.
One last note: the author appeared to insinuate that Buddhism is from China at one point in the middle of the book. It's from India.
August 3, 2022
First time in my life an appendix has blown me away!
Chen does a great job at showcasing the various ways Silicon Valley has adopted Buddhist practices, commoditizing them and striping them of all underlying value besides that which applies to productivity. She does this with compassion, limiting the villainizing of individuals or companies, showing the heart of the individuals involved, while at the same time demonstrating the systemic corruption of these things by capitalist principles.
After recently reading Fisher's "Capitalist Realism" recently, I had already thinking about themes of capitalism robbing religion of it's meaning, but then as a David Foster Wallace fan I also got hit with this quote in the final pages.
"In the day to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship."
Chen does a great job wrapping up the book showing the hollowing of community, empathy and religion by capitalism while at the same time not faulting any of the individuals involved.
In the first appendix she made a great distinction that I had not previously considered. She talks about how when first exploring themes of the book she was looking at Yoga, because there is so much religious iconography involved and it has also been commonplace in the workplace. But she realized that there was a difference between the religious and the sacred. Yoga practitioners would adhere to religious practices/traditions/etc, but none of the members actually made sacrifices towards things that religious practitioners often do. She noticed they often made sacrifices towards work though in depriving their bodies of rest or time/attention towards their families which was consistent with what many strict followers of religion do.
So what do I make of that distinction? Many religions have thousands of years of people making sacrifices because of the experience they have had with those practices. Capitalism has had hundreds of years with people making similar sacrifices. They're probably all wrong considering the length of existence, but worshiping my time with my family/friends/community seems right and late stage capitalism seems to have some issues with community as demonstrated in the book.
Chen does a great job at showcasing the various ways Silicon Valley has adopted Buddhist practices, commoditizing them and striping them of all underlying value besides that which applies to productivity. She does this with compassion, limiting the villainizing of individuals or companies, showing the heart of the individuals involved, while at the same time demonstrating the systemic corruption of these things by capitalist principles.
After recently reading Fisher's "Capitalist Realism" recently, I had already thinking about themes of capitalism robbing religion of it's meaning, but then as a David Foster Wallace fan I also got hit with this quote in the final pages.
"In the day to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship."
Chen does a great job wrapping up the book showing the hollowing of community, empathy and religion by capitalism while at the same time not faulting any of the individuals involved.
In the first appendix she made a great distinction that I had not previously considered. She talks about how when first exploring themes of the book she was looking at Yoga, because there is so much religious iconography involved and it has also been commonplace in the workplace. But she realized that there was a difference between the religious and the sacred. Yoga practitioners would adhere to religious practices/traditions/etc, but none of the members actually made sacrifices towards things that religious practitioners often do. She noticed they often made sacrifices towards work though in depriving their bodies of rest or time/attention towards their families which was consistent with what many strict followers of religion do.
So what do I make of that distinction? Many religions have thousands of years of people making sacrifices because of the experience they have had with those practices. Capitalism has had hundreds of years with people making similar sacrifices. They're probably all wrong considering the length of existence, but worshiping my time with my family/friends/community seems right and late stage capitalism seems to have some issues with community as demonstrated in the book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 11, 2023
I forgot how I found this book but I was intrigued by the premise. With having some familiarity with the Silicon Valley, I could understand how work could be a religion. Just look at the recent events at Twitter (now known as X as of this review), where layoffs and firings have slimmed down the workforce considerably with the "encouragement" that employees actually sleep in the office (!). This is not unusual for this region (although for a company as old as Twitter/X, it's probably a sign something is really wrong). So I was curious to see what author Chen had to say.
Chen basically breaks down how the tech companies of the region have found ways to replace religion, by promoting self-care initiatives like meditation/mindfulness sessions and apps to driving their employees as hard as possible. It could be that people who are drawn to this type of work and this region could be naturally less inclined to religion to begin with, but Chen traces some interesting stories of that replacement.
That said, the book feels really strange. Like another review on Goodreads says, the thesis does feel forced and shoe-horned in. It's clear Chen really wanted to make a connection (and there probably is one), but I am unsure if this is the book that can or does make that case.
I think for me, it would have worked better if Chen had maybe moved to a 30,000 ft level of this observation (because while the SV certainly has its quirks and unique character, the replacement of religion with work is not). Many leaders and managers expect the a similar if not the same level of devotion by requiring employees to be always available, work beyond their hours, feel just as passionately about the work/organization/mission as possible, etc. So in this the Silicon Valley is not unique.
All the same, it is an interesting thesis and an interesting POV to take. I do not know if this would be of interest to those outside of the region, although I could see this for classes on religion, HR management and similar. It also might make for an interesting book club book but again, it would probably help if readers have ties or familiarity with the tech industry, the Silicon Valley, etc.
Borrowed from the library and that was definitely best for me. For most people I would guess it is skippable but would recommend library over a purchase.
Chen basically breaks down how the tech companies of the region have found ways to replace religion, by promoting self-care initiatives like meditation/mindfulness sessions and apps to driving their employees as hard as possible. It could be that people who are drawn to this type of work and this region could be naturally less inclined to religion to begin with, but Chen traces some interesting stories of that replacement.
That said, the book feels really strange. Like another review on Goodreads says, the thesis does feel forced and shoe-horned in. It's clear Chen really wanted to make a connection (and there probably is one), but I am unsure if this is the book that can or does make that case.
I think for me, it would have worked better if Chen had maybe moved to a 30,000 ft level of this observation (because while the SV certainly has its quirks and unique character, the replacement of religion with work is not). Many leaders and managers expect the a similar if not the same level of devotion by requiring employees to be always available, work beyond their hours, feel just as passionately about the work/organization/mission as possible, etc. So in this the Silicon Valley is not unique.
All the same, it is an interesting thesis and an interesting POV to take. I do not know if this would be of interest to those outside of the region, although I could see this for classes on religion, HR management and similar. It also might make for an interesting book club book but again, it would probably help if readers have ties or familiarity with the tech industry, the Silicon Valley, etc.
Borrowed from the library and that was definitely best for me. For most people I would guess it is skippable but would recommend library over a purchase.
August 30, 2023
By tracing the stories of once-religious tech workers who relocated to Silicon Valley, Chen demonstrates the encroachment of the workplace into spheres once occupied by religion. The mechanisms of this encroachment are often described by Silicon Valley corporations as amenities, as enhancements to workplace culture. From meditation programs that teach "scientific Buddhism" to coaching offerings that promise "inner transformation," the tech industry has used these cultural offerings to displace the role once held by pastors, rabbis, and spiritual directors.
The once-religious emigrants that Chen describes are not rejecting Christian doctrine. They are not making an active choice to leave their upbringing in the church. Rather, they are shaped and molded by employers seeking to make the mundane into the transcendent. As our work becomes a source of our spiritual identity, we become more attached to and dependent on our employer. Chen's emigrants often look back on their religious past not with judgment or criticism, but with an acknowledgement that they have moved past their past spiritual selves.
When work becomes a spiritual journey, we approach it with an enhanced sense of purpose. We work harder, we produce more deliverables, we work longer hours. Chen is quick to point out that this transformation is taking place within a late capitalist frame. One wonders, while reading Chen's work, what will happen to the Google engineer or the Facebook account manager upon the next round of layoffs.
How will individuals who derived their spiritual identity from the workplace react when those same workplaces replace their jobs with AI? How will those who found transcendence through coaching and meditation regimes respond when their access to such programs is suddenly revoked? In a time where organizations are leaner and less committed to their employees, the juxtaposition of faith and labor has all the makings of a looming spiritual crisis.
The once-religious emigrants that Chen describes are not rejecting Christian doctrine. They are not making an active choice to leave their upbringing in the church. Rather, they are shaped and molded by employers seeking to make the mundane into the transcendent. As our work becomes a source of our spiritual identity, we become more attached to and dependent on our employer. Chen's emigrants often look back on their religious past not with judgment or criticism, but with an acknowledgement that they have moved past their past spiritual selves.
When work becomes a spiritual journey, we approach it with an enhanced sense of purpose. We work harder, we produce more deliverables, we work longer hours. Chen is quick to point out that this transformation is taking place within a late capitalist frame. One wonders, while reading Chen's work, what will happen to the Google engineer or the Facebook account manager upon the next round of layoffs.
How will individuals who derived their spiritual identity from the workplace react when those same workplaces replace their jobs with AI? How will those who found transcendence through coaching and meditation regimes respond when their access to such programs is suddenly revoked? In a time where organizations are leaner and less committed to their employees, the juxtaposition of faith and labor has all the makings of a looming spiritual crisis.
June 20, 2022
I listened to the unabridged 10-hour audio version of this title (read by Jennifer Lim, Princeton Audio, 2022).
This book explores the relationship between work and spirituality, both the notion of work taking the place of spirituality, in the sense of leaving a lot less time for the latter, and using spiritual practices, such as meditation, mindfulness, and yoga, to improve work focus and productivity. While the idea merits attention, the book has too much repetition, making the reader less and less interested as the narrative drags on.
Highly-skilled workers, particularly those in tech fields, have been leaving churches and other places of worship in droves. This is in part because the time and energy they spend on work leaves little time for anything else (including social life) and partly due to such workers finding that their exciting and impactful professional contributions satisfy their need for belonging, identity, purpose, and transcendence. Interestingly, many tech firms offer on-site "spiritual care," for their employees, because they have discovered that Buddhist-inspired spiritual practices tend to increase productivity, in much the same way that perks such as on-site gyms, childcare, and free or low-price food boost employee satisfaction and performance.
The bottom-line is that highly-skilled workers tend to put their souls into their work, making spiritual connections with it. There are advantages to this devotion to work, but what happens when there is a tech downturn and older employees are laid off? Tech firms are loyal to their employees as long as the business is profitable. The same employees are readily discarded when times are tough, companies change hands, or they speak up on moral issues. The latter is a good argument for spirituality, whatever form it takes, to be separate and independent from work.
This book explores the relationship between work and spirituality, both the notion of work taking the place of spirituality, in the sense of leaving a lot less time for the latter, and using spiritual practices, such as meditation, mindfulness, and yoga, to improve work focus and productivity. While the idea merits attention, the book has too much repetition, making the reader less and less interested as the narrative drags on.
Highly-skilled workers, particularly those in tech fields, have been leaving churches and other places of worship in droves. This is in part because the time and energy they spend on work leaves little time for anything else (including social life) and partly due to such workers finding that their exciting and impactful professional contributions satisfy their need for belonging, identity, purpose, and transcendence. Interestingly, many tech firms offer on-site "spiritual care," for their employees, because they have discovered that Buddhist-inspired spiritual practices tend to increase productivity, in much the same way that perks such as on-site gyms, childcare, and free or low-price food boost employee satisfaction and performance.
The bottom-line is that highly-skilled workers tend to put their souls into their work, making spiritual connections with it. There are advantages to this devotion to work, but what happens when there is a tech downturn and older employees are laid off? Tech firms are loyal to their employees as long as the business is profitable. The same employees are readily discarded when times are tough, companies change hands, or they speak up on moral issues. The latter is a good argument for spirituality, whatever form it takes, to be separate and independent from work.
July 6, 2022
Okay, I don't usually write reviews, but this book annoyed me a bit, so I wanted to explain why I only gave it three stars. I actually really enjoyed most of the book, which was about the ways in a tech worker's relationship with their company borders on being a religion, and how companies use religious/spiritual ideas to keep and "optimize" employees (eg., offering mediation clinics to reduce burnout). If the book ended there, I would have given it four stars. The problem is that throughout this narrative, there's an undercurrent that this is a bad thing. Although it was hinted at in every chapter, discussion of the negative effects of this was relegated only to the final chapter, and then only indirectly tied to religion. The author mentions things like lack of civic engagement, income inequity, and the marginalization of those in Silicon Valley but not in tech.
All of these are real and important problems, but I don't think this traces back to the workshop of work or the existence of workplace yoga classes. The strongest of these arguments is that by only offering these perks to engineers, but not those in other departments (say, custodial staff), tech companies are further weakening churches and other institutions, thus making those employees' lives even harder. Aside from that, however, the negativity is (in my opinion) handwaved as "worshipping the office is worse than worshipping the church", or that "forming communities of colleagues is worse than forming communities of neighbors". It's not even that I don't believe this - having a broader social circle has benefits - but compared to the depth of research in the rest of the book, this conclusion feels thin and under-supported.
All of these are real and important problems, but I don't think this traces back to the workshop of work or the existence of workplace yoga classes. The strongest of these arguments is that by only offering these perks to engineers, but not those in other departments (say, custodial staff), tech companies are further weakening churches and other institutions, thus making those employees' lives even harder. Aside from that, however, the negativity is (in my opinion) handwaved as "worshipping the office is worse than worshipping the church", or that "forming communities of colleagues is worse than forming communities of neighbors". It's not even that I don't believe this - having a broader social circle has benefits - but compared to the depth of research in the rest of the book, this conclusion feels thin and under-supported.
December 20, 2022
First chapter was great, exploring how work has replaced religion in modern companies (particularly tech in Silicon Valley). It really hit home hearing how much work has taken over all aspects of life: community, spirituality, a sense of purpose, etc.
Second chapter was good, exploring how tech companies have embraced this and have employed their own "religion" in order to maximize productivity: They provide daycare and free food so you don't have to leave, they provide meditation and yoga so you can "train your brain" to be more productive. They provide game nights and retreats to provide social interaction - all while making the company the "god" to be worshipped, and productivity the means to worship.
Then it goes off track and meanders aimlessly through the rest of the book, unfortunately. The next three chapters just go over how companies borrow / steal from Buddhism, strip religion out and make it medically and statistically about productivity. There is some subtle preachiness about it, and some author assumptions that she tries to pass along, like "if work is your religion, then you can't possibly worship elsewhere" type of stuff, which is like "what? why not?"
It started strong but ultimately fell a little flat. I think the first two chapters (not including introduction) are worth reading. The rest can be skipped.
Second chapter was good, exploring how tech companies have embraced this and have employed their own "religion" in order to maximize productivity: They provide daycare and free food so you don't have to leave, they provide meditation and yoga so you can "train your brain" to be more productive. They provide game nights and retreats to provide social interaction - all while making the company the "god" to be worshipped, and productivity the means to worship.
Then it goes off track and meanders aimlessly through the rest of the book, unfortunately. The next three chapters just go over how companies borrow / steal from Buddhism, strip religion out and make it medically and statistically about productivity. There is some subtle preachiness about it, and some author assumptions that she tries to pass along, like "if work is your religion, then you can't possibly worship elsewhere" type of stuff, which is like "what? why not?"
It started strong but ultimately fell a little flat. I think the first two chapters (not including introduction) are worth reading. The rest can be skipped.
October 10, 2022
Honestly more insightful than I thought. I think the chapters on meditation / work are on a very focused thesis: Silicon Valley has co-opted meditation and spirituality for productivity, and have justified the use of a previously religious tool in the workplace by "whitening" it e.g. Killing the Buddha.
The ending really hits though — that work as a greedy institution can soak up its employees needs and direct their entire attention to productivity makes society more broadly poorer. Who is there to care about public transportation when the wealthy all use company sponsored vehicles? Who will make a small restaurant when all food is provided for? Who will organize community outside of the workplace when the workplace accounts for all community you could possibly want?
There's a moment in the book when the author discusses Awe. An engineer attending a psychology lecture asked "how can I buy awe," but awe is not a commodity to be bought. Awe is sacred and not accruable — you cannot possess it, it possesses you. In a world without the sacred, awe is unachievable. We cannot use an instrumental perspective to think about awe, because awe is not a skill. Anyways ... interesting.
The ending really hits though — that work as a greedy institution can soak up its employees needs and direct their entire attention to productivity makes society more broadly poorer. Who is there to care about public transportation when the wealthy all use company sponsored vehicles? Who will make a small restaurant when all food is provided for? Who will organize community outside of the workplace when the workplace accounts for all community you could possibly want?
There's a moment in the book when the author discusses Awe. An engineer attending a psychology lecture asked "how can I buy awe," but awe is not a commodity to be bought. Awe is sacred and not accruable — you cannot possess it, it possesses you. In a world without the sacred, awe is unachievable. We cannot use an instrumental perspective to think about awe, because awe is not a skill. Anyways ... interesting.
June 29, 2023
“In the day to day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship”
“Silicon Valley shows what happens we worship work- when we surrender our time, our identities, our resources and even our cherished traditions to work. How then, can we not worship work”
I really enjoyed this book. It was a great look at how work has filled in for eroding social institutions and how bringing those institutions to work has left behind those who are outside the knowledge economy.
I especially enjoyed the look at meditation entrepreneurs, the removal of Buddhism, and the differentiated approach of the old guard San Francisco mystics and the new generation of tech workers who seek to meditate only in service of work and advancing their productivity.
This book helped me name something I had seen and felt but couldn’t quite put my finger on!
“Silicon Valley shows what happens we worship work- when we surrender our time, our identities, our resources and even our cherished traditions to work. How then, can we not worship work”
I really enjoyed this book. It was a great look at how work has filled in for eroding social institutions and how bringing those institutions to work has left behind those who are outside the knowledge economy.
I especially enjoyed the look at meditation entrepreneurs, the removal of Buddhism, and the differentiated approach of the old guard San Francisco mystics and the new generation of tech workers who seek to meditate only in service of work and advancing their productivity.
This book helped me name something I had seen and felt but couldn’t quite put my finger on!
September 11, 2023
The book unfortunately lacks substance, it seemed like a very interesting read from the description and foreward but upon further analysis the thesis of the book is ultimately undermined by the 2020 Pandemic & Lockdown. Many of these companies still had employees lining up to take offers despite the lack of construed "rituals"; to my knowledge the author has not addressed this issue.
Personally, the comparison to religion seems as cliche as a teenager cutting in that some societal value/objective "is like a drug" with shallow comparisons added ad nauseum; when yeah, if at that point youre that vague the same could be said of everything. In my opinion the rabbithole of corporate America's exploitation of Buddhism and Asian Mysticism is a far more interesting investigation and use of the time.
That's pretty much the size of it, "its not worth it"
This will be a short review since I am mostly going through books I have already read but that's it.
Personally, the comparison to religion seems as cliche as a teenager cutting in that some societal value/objective "is like a drug" with shallow comparisons added ad nauseum; when yeah, if at that point youre that vague the same could be said of everything. In my opinion the rabbithole of corporate America's exploitation of Buddhism and Asian Mysticism is a far more interesting investigation and use of the time.
That's pretty much the size of it, "its not worth it"
This will be a short review since I am mostly going through books I have already read but that's it.
December 2, 2023
how many other people do sociology on silicon valley? the interview quotes are often illuminating.
we already know that work has expanded to give people meaning they once got from non-work sources (whether clubs, civic organizations, their own families, or of course organized religion), but Chen adds an interesting perspective on specifically how silicon valley carefully removes any vestige of religion and spirituality from "mindfulness" practices to pitch these to skeptical, typically nonreligious, audiences.
As with too many "single idea" books, Work Pray Code goes wayward in Chen's closing remarks as she tries to turn the book into a polemic, and chalk up all of society's evils to what happens when "work becomes religion"
we already know that work has expanded to give people meaning they once got from non-work sources (whether clubs, civic organizations, their own families, or of course organized religion), but Chen adds an interesting perspective on specifically how silicon valley carefully removes any vestige of religion and spirituality from "mindfulness" practices to pitch these to skeptical, typically nonreligious, audiences.
As with too many "single idea" books, Work Pray Code goes wayward in Chen's closing remarks as she tries to turn the book into a polemic, and chalk up all of society's evils to what happens when "work becomes religion"
April 28, 2022
I've never considered myself spiritual or religious, but after reading this book it's clear that “there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.” Chen outlines the case for how intertwined steam-cleaned spirituality has become, how this has happened, and what issues this presents for society. Workplace spirituality has become a tool leveraged by the technocratic elite to extract additional and often self-elective consensual labor by blackmailing our innate desire to belong and believe as part of a greater cause. An eye-opening read that I'd recommend to anyone in tech!
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