Digital technology was supposed to change the world for the better, but it has left us miserable, divided, and misinformed—when it hasn’t posed a direct threat to our physical safety.

The problem isn’t just greedy CEOs promising to “change the world” as they seek ever more eyeballs and app downloads. It’s that the tech industry struggles to understand what its products actually do and how they might fail.

The reason is twofold: an unshakeable faith in managerialism—the notion that every business can be reduced to a spreadsheet overseen by MBAs—and an equally strong belief in software as the solution to all problems.

From airplane disasters to PowerPoint propaganda to the perils of generative AI, I uncover a pattern of recklessness and overconfidence in the managerial class—and ultimately argue that developers themselves must intervene to curb corporate power.

Fatal Abstraction: Why the Managerial Class Loses Control of Software publishes April 8, 2025 and will be available at your local bookstore, Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, and elsewhere.