From award-winning investigative journalist and leading technology reporter Karen Hao comes a devastating, meticulously reported exposé that strips away the polished hype of Silicon Valley to reveal the shocking human, economic, and environmental costs of the artificial intelligence boom. Drawing on more than three hundred interviews with former executives, tech whistleblowers, and data engineers, the narrative charts the dramatic evolution of OpenAI under the leadership of Sam Altman as it transformed from an idealistic, non-profit research lab into a cutthroat, multi-billion-dollar corporate giant. Hao brilliantly frames modern tech conglomerates as modern-day empires, showing how they ruthlessly extract vast amounts of unconsented public data, exploit underpaid content-moderation workforces in vulnerable global communities, and exhaust critical water and power resources for massive data centers. This essential, eye-opening account balances high-stakes board-level corporate drama with deeply moving firsthand testimonies from around the globe, forcing readers to critically confront the dark corporate infrastructure that is actively shaping the future of global knowledge.