Gary Rivlin

From the author of the New York Times Notable Book of the Year Drive By comes a unique and riveting exploration of one of America’s largest and fastest-growing industries—the business of poverty. Broke, USA is a Fast Food Nation for the “poverty industry” that will also appeal to readers of Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed) and David Shipler (The Working Poor).

From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc.—How the Working Poor Became Big Business

Broke, USA

"A unique and riveting exploration of one of America's largest and fastest-growing industries--the business of poverty"--Provided by publisher.

from pawnshops to Poverty, Inc. : how the working poor became big business

Ten years after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana—on August 29, 2005—journalist Gary Rivlin traces the storm’s immediate damage, the city of New Orleans’s efforts to rebuild itself, and the storm’s lasting effects not just on the city’s geography and infrastructure—but on the psychic, racial, and social fabric of one of this nation’s great cities. Much of New Orleans still sat under water the first time Gary Rivlin glimpsed the city after Hurricane Katrina. Then a staff reporter for The New York Times, he was heading into the city to survey the damage. The Interstate was eerily empty. Soldiers in uniform and armed with assault rifles stopped him. Water reached the eaves of houses for as far as the eye could see. Four out of every five houses—eighty percent of the city’s housing stock—had been flooded. Around that same proportion of schools and businesses were wrecked. The weight of all that water on the streets cracked gas and water and sewer pipes all around town and the deluge had drowned almost every power substation and rendered unusable most of the city’s water and sewer system. People living in flooded areas of the city could not be expected to pay their property taxes for the foreseeable future. Nor would all those boarded-up businesses—21,000 of the city’s 22,000 businesses were still shuttered six months after the storm—be contributing their share of sales taxes and other fees to the city’s coffers. Six weeks after the storm, the city laid off half its workforce—precisely when so many people were turning to its government for help. Meanwhile, cynics both in and out of the Beltway were questioning the use of taxpayer dollars to rebuild a city that sat mostly below sea level. How could the city possibly come back? This book traces the stories of New Orleanians of all stripes—politicians and business owners, teachers and bus drivers, poor and wealthy, black and white—as they confront the aftermath of one of the great tragedies of our age and reconstruct, change, and in some cases abandon a city that’s the soul of this nation.

After the Flood

Katrina

A reader-friendly guide to the inner workings and behind-the-scenes action of Silicon Valley and venture capitalism. Investigative reporter Gary Rivlin gives an armchair tour of the world of venture capitalism, while providing vivid case studies illustrating how to get started in the field. He shows how once-small companies such as Facebook, Instagram, and Amazon used venture capitalism to transform into the icons they are today, and the VCs that made a fortune in the process. Readers will learn what series funding is, the difference between an angel and super angel investor, and how to go about identifying ideas worthy of funding. Becoming a Venture Capitalist is not only an exclusive look into the world of legendary venture firms—as well as stories of their most interesting characters, including Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, and Mark Zuckerberg—but a wonderful guide on how to break into a seemingly impenetrable world.

Becoming a Venture Capitalist

Explains how Harold Washington and his associates overcame the Daley political machine and built an administration that crossed racial lines and transformed Chicago politics

Chicago's Harold Washington and the Politics of Race

Fire on the Prairie

A veteran Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist shadows the top thinkers in the field of Artificial Intelligence, introducing the breakthroughs and developments that will change the way we live and work. Artificial Intelligence has been “just around the corner” for decades, continually disappointing those who long believed in its potential. But now, with the emergence and growing use of ChatGPT, Gemini, and a rapidly multiplying number of other AI tools, many are wondering: Has AI’s moment finally arrived? In AI Valley, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Rivlin brings us deep into the world of AI development in Silicon Valley. Over the course of more than a year, Rivlin closely follows founders and venture capitalists trying to capitalize on this AI moment. That includes LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, the legendary investor whom the Wall Street Journal once called, “the most connected person in Silicon Valley.” Through Hoffman, Rivlin is granted access to a number of companies on the cutting-edge of AI research, such as Inflection AI, the company Hoffman cofounded in 2022, and OpenAI, the San Francisco-based startup that sparked it all with its release at the end of that year of ChatGPT. In addition to Hoffman, Rivlin introduces us to other AI experts, including OpenAI cofounder Sam Altman and Mustafa Suleyman, the co-founder of DeepMind, an early AI startup that Google bought for $650 million in 2014. Rivlin also brings readers inside Microsoft, Meta, Google and other tech giants scrambling to keep pace. On this vast frontier, no one knows which of these companies will hit it big–or which will flame out spectacularly. In this riveting narrative marbled with familiar names such as Musk, Zuckerberg, and Gates, Rivlin chronicles breakthroughs as they happen, giving us a deep understanding of what’s around the corner in AI development. An adventure story full of drama and unforgettable personalities, AI Valley promises to be the definitive story for anyone seeking to understand the latest phase of world-changing discoveries and the minds behind them.

Microsoft, Google, and the Trillion-Dollar Race to Cash In on Artificial Intelligence

AI Valley

Gary Rivlin tells the story of Ron Conway, the man who has placed more bets on Internet start-ups than anyone eise in Silicon Valley. Conway is a reader-friendly way into the realm of angel financing, where independently wealthy investors link up with companies just as they are being born. King of the Angels takes you into this fascinating world on the edges of the financial universe, where the pace is frantic, the story lines are rich, and every moment is perilous.

Ron Conway and the Fall of the Dot-coms

The Godfather of Silicon Valley

A humorous investigation into the controversial world of Bill Gates and his foes explores our fixation on the billionaire with bad hair and society's odyssey to understand him.

Gary Rivlin

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