Bit Flip: A Novel

Bit Flip is a fascinating look into the dark side of Silicon Valley tech companies. And although this book is a work of fiction, it is easy to see many of the things that happen to the main character, Sam could be taken from true events. Sam Hughes works for a company called Ainetu and is second in command as COO under Founder and CEO Rohan Sharma. Tired of doing “all the work”, Sam finally loses it. He finds himself as part of a panel that Rohan was supposed to be on in front of a live audience. His co-panelists are all arrogant one-uppers and finally when it is time for Sam to speak he gives them a piece of his mind ending with “…some days it seems like the only thing we’re ‘crushing’ is ourselves.”. This does not bode well with the audience or with Rohan and Sam is fired from his job. It is after he is fired that Sam finds some disturbing undertakings at Ainetu. He doesn’t think twice before deciding he wants to blow the roof off of some very fraudulent “mistakes” made by the company.

Bit Flip is a fantastic page-turner from start to finish. Readers will be rooting for Sam as every decision he makes pushes him down further into the rabbit hole. After one of his co-workers is let go and commits suicide, Sam must really think about what it means to work for a company like Ainetu. This is a game of manipulation and power struggles that are never-ending. With themes of suicide, sexual harassment and assault, fixing the books, and the secrets behind Silicon Valley tech startups, Bit Flip is not your ordinary piece of fiction.

Author Mike Trigg does an amazing job describing in detail, the situations that Sam finds himself in, and the conversations he has with other people including co-workers and his own wife. He also describes many Bay Area landmarks and the changes the Bay Area has undergone in the past twenty-plus years. This book is very realistic and as someone who lives in the heart of Silicon Valley, I can attest to the “barely big enough” eighteen hundred square foot, three-million-dollar homes and the thought that Sam’s own “kids’ sense of reality was permanently distorted from life in the Bay Area”. I mean, how DO you explain that “not having a gate code and full-time house staff makes you normal, not poor?” Welcome to Silicon Valley, and prepare to have your definition of entitled tech millennials redefined.