Top notch

"I went into this expecting another “tech founder betrays everyone” story and got something much sharper. What got me is the structure: you know from the prologue that Silas didn’t build what he claims, so every scene of him confidently telling his origin story afterward hits completely differently. You’re not waiting to find out if he’s lying. You’re watching him slowly lose the ability to tell the difference himself, which is a genuinely unsettling idea I haven’t seen done this way before. The patent scene in chapter three is the one that got me. Iris signing away her own credit without a fight, and the story making clear exactly why that silence was more dangerous than an argument, said more about power and desperation than most books manage in twice the length. I’d recommend this to anyone who liked Bad Blood or The Social Network but wanted more time inside the liar’s head instead of just watching the wreckage from outside. Also recommend it to anyone who’s ever worked at a startup and clocked how easily a good story can replace an accurate one. I rated it 5 stars because it does something structurally ambitious (the dramatic irony device) without ever feeling like a gimmick, and because the ending doesn’t let Silas off the hook, which a lot of “morally gray founder” stories chicken out on."