South Bay author's latest novel looks at Silicon Valley from an Asian female perspective
A new novel by Bay Area author Kyla Zhao takes a critical look at the experience women have in the male-dominated tech industry, hoping to provide greater representation in publishing by building the story around an Asian woman.
"Valley Verified" is the second novel by the Stanford graduate who has worked as a data analyst while writing stories about her community locally and abroad.
"I grew up reading stories, but it felt like the main character was always white, always blonde, blue-eyed. And for the longest time, I couldn't see myself in the books that I was reading. I couldn't find the main character that I could really relate to and identify with," Zhao told KPIX.
Born and raised in Singapore, she moved to the Bay Area for college and completed her bachelor's and master's degrees before starting to work in Silicon Valley in 2021. Her time around the tech industry while at Stanford drew her into that career path and would eventually make for the setting of this new novel. Her first book, "The Fraud Squad," also had leading characters who were Asian and took place in her home country.
"I was living by myself in California. I was very homesick and lonely and also really frustrated with the rising anti-Asian racism going on around the world at that time," she explained. "I wanted to see Asians like myself being portrayed in a more positive manner, as the stars of something fun and vibrant and joyful instead of being labeled as the villains."
Only a few months into her tech job after finishing up her degrees at Stanford, she was heading home to Singapore for Christmas. She remembers feeling unsure of what to say about her new chapter and how to convey early success with that line of work.
"So I took out my laptop on a plane and I typed out the first line, 'Zoe Zheng was having an absolute blast.' And that's the image that I tried to portray about myself to the people around me. That's what my protagonist was trying to tell the people around her. But at the end of the day, we were both lying to ourselves, and it took the entire book to come to terms with that," Zhao said.
In the novel, Zoe decides to give up her career in fashion and the life she's built for herself in New York to move to Silicon Valley and start a new job working for an app startup. Zhao herself has a background in fashion, writing for multiple magazines before switching to her work as a data analyst. Both of her books are fiction, and she explains that all her characters are made up from a variety of people she has encountered over the years in real life.
"She really does not feel that sense of belonging, and every step of the way, she feels like it's an uphill battle. The odds are stacked against her, no one believes that she belongs there, and as a result she starts to believe that she does not belong there," Zhao explained about the impact of working in Silicon Valley on her main character in "Valley Verified."
The book does take on the serious concerns others have raised about working in the tech industry. Zhao says these are problems in many industries, including fashion. It was essential for her book to highlight women helping other women, because too often they feel forced to compete against each other, Zhao explained.
"Valley Verified" also critiques the fashion of Silicon Valley, making fun of what is often thought of as a uniform in the business, wearing vests and fleeces from a certain outdoor brand each day.
"At the end of the day I hope you get a good time out of reading it, the same way I did writing it," Zhao said.
