Paradox Inc. is a novel that asks what if Big Tech invented time travel and dealt with it just as current Big Tech companies would? The narrative, positioned as an investigation into what happened, follows three protagonists: an engineer from The Bleb Project, the company who developed the first consumer time travel device; an employee from a rival tech company trying to work out what happened to the godfather of time travel; and a tech journalist trying to uncover what is going on whilst fighting a custody battle for her daughter.
As someone who reads a lot of non-fiction about Big Tech, I appreciated how much this book satirises these companies and what they’d do with an entirely new technology, down to the corporate speak and the treatment of people pushing for different outcomes. There’s an email thread section of the rival company reacting to The Bleb Project’s announcement which feels akin to Several People Are Typing (in my mind, the best send up of workplace culture and tech out there). The book really focuses in on the tech bubble side of the narrative, not really showing much about anyone outside of that, which makes it a fun satire, but doesn’t quite get to the impact on regular people outside of the tech world.
In terms of the plot, it is pretty straightforwardly what you’d expect: corporate investigation, people trying to do things they shouldn’t have the power to do, and time travel going very wrong. It doesn’t get too bogged down in trying to explain how time travel was invented or why things go wrong, which makes it very readable (but I’m sure there’s some people who would like more of that side of things).
Overall, this is a fun book that is also horrifyingly real to compare to our current moment with generative AI. I can imagine that it would be a good gateway for people to get into some of the non-fiction about Silicon Valley for those who’ve not had any interest in it before, too.
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