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Fatal Abstraction: Why the Managerial Class Loses Control of Software
A tech insider explains how capitalism and software development make for such a dangerous mix.
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. As acclaimed writer Darryl Campbell explains, 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 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, Campbell uncovers a pattern of recklessness and overconfidence in the managerial class—and ultimately argues that developers themselves must intervene to curb corporate power.
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. As acclaimed writer Darryl Campbell explains, 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 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, Campbell uncovers a pattern of recklessness and overconfidence in the managerial class—and ultimately argues that developers themselves must intervene to curb corporate power.
320 pages, Hardcover
Published April 8, 2025
11 people are currently reading
213 people want to read
About the author
Darryl Campbell
3 books4 followersDarryl Campbell has worked at Amazon, Uber, Expedia, and Tinder. His writing has appeared in the Verge, Vulture, and GQ. He lives in Dallas, Texas.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 27, 2025
This book was deeply bleak and depressing, and made me feel vaguely sick as I read it. Although the tour through software failures throughout the years was interesting, the argument made throughout the book was not cogent, specific, or novel. The call to action to tech workers alone, with the author throwing up his hands at regulation or transformative change as hopeless, was laughable, especially as it did not offer any specifics about tech unionization. Reading the acknowledgements uncovers the fact that this was a solid story about the Boeing 737 MAX crashes that was stretched beyond its limits to make a vague argument most of its readers will probably already just as vaguely agree with.
July 18, 2025
UPDATE: I forgot to say, one of the most innovative sections of this book is on POWERPOINT, and the impact Powerpoint has had on language and analysis in general. “By sheer volume, it is likely that more content gets produced on PowerPoint than on YouTube, X, or TikTok, and possibly more than all three of them combined.” As he lays out his case for the impact of managerialism on the production of technology companies, he emphasizes how abstraction and vacuous remarks paper over reality. And a lynchpin of that argument? The fact that PowerPoint was not originally created to produce persuasive pie chart drivel - it was intended to be a supplement to detailed white papers. It wasn’t supposed to stand on its own, and now look what happened. Enron is a case in point; the comparable data points used by the managerial class to compare otherwise disparate companies, ie, the stock market, is a larger one.
Why is this failing to get the buzz it deserves? Odds are high you haven’t heard of it - I’m not aware of this title or the author’s name from the Substack-podcast media silo I’m in. Not a hint of it.
This book has opened up a new way to discuss our situationwith normies. I admit, I’m tired of being written off for not gettin’ with the program. I mean, how many times have I heard statements like “Well AI is here, the train has left the station” in response to even the faintest criticism of LLMs…
I am tired. I’d rather play my mandolin badly or do absolutely nothing, I would rather lay on a broken armchair in the yard and close my eyes, then open them again, than try to sell people on the idea that we have any agency to create a future we’d enjoy being part of. Today’s condition: to be tired, and shocked, at the same time. From horror movies or short-term emergencies, I’m so used to associating terror with adrenaline. But long-term fear and dismantling of personal agency and community…that’s a relatively new condition, that doesn’t seem to have its own terms yet. In English, at least. Arabic and Uyghur presumably have some terms that fulfill the need.
So - thanks Darryl! Picking it up where my tired and considerably less astute criticisms left off. And if nothing else, read it for a profound explanation of the details of 737 Max crashes, or Uber self-driving vehicular manslaughter (funny word that, I guess, robotslaughter hasn’t come into parlance yet). I treasure the mix of the big picture and personal experience in this book, and his subdued tone. He doesn’t actually sound like he has an axe to grind. Whereas if I wrote this book it would merely be a sour diatribe…it would be of no use to anyone who didn’t already feel that way.
Why is this failing to get the buzz it deserves? Odds are high you haven’t heard of it - I’m not aware of this title or the author’s name from the Substack-podcast media silo I’m in. Not a hint of it.
This book has opened up a new way to discuss our situationwith normies. I admit, I’m tired of being written off for not gettin’ with the program. I mean, how many times have I heard statements like “Well AI is here, the train has left the station” in response to even the faintest criticism of LLMs…
I am tired. I’d rather play my mandolin badly or do absolutely nothing, I would rather lay on a broken armchair in the yard and close my eyes, then open them again, than try to sell people on the idea that we have any agency to create a future we’d enjoy being part of. Today’s condition: to be tired, and shocked, at the same time. From horror movies or short-term emergencies, I’m so used to associating terror with adrenaline. But long-term fear and dismantling of personal agency and community…that’s a relatively new condition, that doesn’t seem to have its own terms yet. In English, at least. Arabic and Uyghur presumably have some terms that fulfill the need.
So - thanks Darryl! Picking it up where my tired and considerably less astute criticisms left off. And if nothing else, read it for a profound explanation of the details of 737 Max crashes, or Uber self-driving vehicular manslaughter (funny word that, I guess, robotslaughter hasn’t come into parlance yet). I treasure the mix of the big picture and personal experience in this book, and his subdued tone. He doesn’t actually sound like he has an axe to grind. Whereas if I wrote this book it would merely be a sour diatribe…it would be of no use to anyone who didn’t already feel that way.
August 1, 2025
I am ten pages in and struggling to choke down the regurgitated ‘us vs. them’ rhetoric of a teenager talking about their chores while plowing through a first person shooter after school.
Early (ten pages in early), the author stakes a claim that ‘managerialism’ has created a class of people who know nothing about what their employees do, and while telling a story about software, cites the catastrophic use of DDT by Montsanto as an example of managerialism in tech.
He closes this narrative by describing manager as [sic] ‘dogs trying to understand physics’. Surely you can’t teach physics to dogs, and that makes managers bad!
I love dogs, I’ve written more code than the author, and yes, I’m manager in tech. You can discount my review, but the author knows nothing about writing good software or managing people. He has written a book wrapped around the bubble gum of a sophomore year in the study or ‘people in charge suck’.
Even then, he makes as much of a case for the work he disdains in his opening paragraphs:
After ww2x ‘corporate profits had increased more than tenfold’, and says that there is a ‘strong positive relationship between the adoption of managerial practices and the success of a business’. But we know he’s angry, and we know he wants us to keep reading because managers are dumb, and physics is hard, and you can’t teach physics to dumb people, especially when the dumb people are running a for profit company.
I hope you save your time.
Early (ten pages in early), the author stakes a claim that ‘managerialism’ has created a class of people who know nothing about what their employees do, and while telling a story about software, cites the catastrophic use of DDT by Montsanto as an example of managerialism in tech.
He closes this narrative by describing manager as [sic] ‘dogs trying to understand physics’. Surely you can’t teach physics to dogs, and that makes managers bad!
I love dogs, I’ve written more code than the author, and yes, I’m manager in tech. You can discount my review, but the author knows nothing about writing good software or managing people. He has written a book wrapped around the bubble gum of a sophomore year in the study or ‘people in charge suck’.
Even then, he makes as much of a case for the work he disdains in his opening paragraphs:
After ww2x ‘corporate profits had increased more than tenfold’, and says that there is a ‘strong positive relationship between the adoption of managerial practices and the success of a business’. But we know he’s angry, and we know he wants us to keep reading because managers are dumb, and physics is hard, and you can’t teach physics to dumb people, especially when the dumb people are running a for profit company.
I hope you save your time.
April 22, 2025
Part of a wave of books that are a backlash against the excesses of the Silicon Valley growth-at-all-costs tech mindset. Highly recommended as a cautionary tale as well as a manifesto for how things can get better (hint: tech workers unionize). Weaves together the connection between airplane crashes, social media, powerpoint, AI-at-all-costs.
June 18, 2025
An extremely insightful perspective of the tech industry spoken from first hand encounters of managerial failures. These experiences speak the true story of managerialism in our modern age and offer a cautionary tale of accepting technology outright.
May 17, 2025
Interesting view of a company's view of software. Good read.
July 22, 2025
Excellent work for understanding how software interacts with and shapes modern life and the pitfalls of managerialism when applied to new technologies.
August 5, 2025
[ Review to come: this might require a serious review on my blog. ]
August 31, 2025
His central premise is good: use software to augment humans and don’t focus only on the financial bottom line. But this book is bad and his arguments are stupid.
July 15, 2025
Fascinating but a dense read. Kinda lost me towards the end. Most memorable section to me was regarding Boeing. Loss of safety for profit continues to grow, which is scary.
Nothing I haven’t heard in some capacity before but managerialism as you can imagine is not good.
Nothing I haven’t heard in some capacity before but managerialism as you can imagine is not good.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews