Part memoir, part explosive window into the mind of a catfish, a thrilling personal account of three women coming face-to-face with an internet predator and teaming up to expose them.
In 2011, three successful and highly educated women fell head over heels for the brilliant and charming Ethan Schuman. Unbeknownst to the others, each exchanged countless messages with Ethan, staying up late into the evenings to deepen their connections with this seemingly perfect man. His detailed excuses about broken webcams and complicated international calling plans seemed believable, as did last minute trip cancellations. After all, why would he lie? Ethan wasn't after money - he never convinced his marks to shell out thousands of dollars for some imagined crisis. Rather, he ensnared these women in a web of intense emotional intimacy. After the trio independently began to question inconsistencies in their new flame's stories, they managed to find one another and uncover a greater deception than they could've ever imagined. As Anna Akbari and the women untangled their catish's web, they found dozens of other victims and realized that without a proper crime, there was no legal reason for "Ethan" to ever stop.
THERE IS NO ETHAN catalogues Akbari's experience as both victim and observer. By looking at the bigger picture of where these stories unfold - a world where technology mediates our relationships; where words and images are easily manipulated; and where truth, reality, and identity have become slippery terms - Akbari gives a page-turning and riveting examination of why stories like Ethan's matter for us all.
As an entrepreneur, Anna Akbari learned that one of the best things about startups is their ability to "pivot" quickly - basically a euphemism for failing and starting over. And she quickly found that personal success is no different. It's not just about developing and following the right process but also having a good idea. And that demands rigor and daily maintenance - far beyond a few positive affirmations. Like any Silicon Valley startup, the business of life is not as glamorous as its Instagram account would make it seem.
What do you do when planning is not an option? When control is out of your reach? You isolate the small stuff, experiment constantly, and use the results to lay a more sustainable foundation for the future. You validate your idealized vision by testing it out in bite-size increments. You see what sticks, integrate, and move forward. And inevitably you experience a series of failures along the way, but those failures are key to your next success.
Living a startup life is about maximizing flexibility and measuring ongoing results, not avoiding failure or reaching one particular end goal. It's about embracing defeat, analyzing it, and failing up. In Startup Your Life, Akbari shows that after all, it's often the stumbles that pave the way for real happiness.
