Editing Microserfs (section)

===Microsoft, Silicon Valley, and geek culture===

{{quote box | width = 22em | align = right | quote = It always amazes me that 90 per cent of people in the States now work directly around a PC. That's like a billion person-hours a day spent, and yet none of the stories we tell, or the books we write, take place in an office. There's just so much of the human soul and imagination in that strange environment now. I'm amazed we don't see 50 books a week on office life. | source = Coupland, ''[[The Times]]'', July 1998.<ref name="Generation1">Johnstone, Susan. "Talking 'bout his Generation". ''[[The Times]]'', July 24, 1998.</ref> }}

Coupland lived in Redmond, Washington for six weeks and Palo Alto, Silicon Valley for four months researching the lives of Microsoft workers.<ref>Soriano, Cesar G. "DATELINE: Cyberspace and New York" ''[[The Washington Times]]'', June 28, 1995</ref><ref>Folmar, Kate. "Channeling the lives of Silicon Valley", ''[[The Globe and Mail]]'', June 9, 1995.</ref><ref>Grimwood, Jon Courtenay. "Nerds of the Cyberstocracy". ''[[The Independent]]'', November 13, 1995.</ref> "It was a 'Gorillas in the Mist' kind of observation… What do they put in their glove compartments? What snack foods do they eat? What posters are on their bedroom walls?"<ref>[[The New York Times]] Interview, September 9, 1994</ref> Friends from Microsoft and Apple also helped him with research.<ref name="Generation1" />

The novel was a radical departure from Coupland's previous novel, ''[[Life After God]]''. "I wrote the two books under radically different mind-sets, and ''Serfs'' was a willful rerouting into a different realm".<ref>Cockerill, Matt. "Books: Serfs of Silicon Age". ''[[The Guardian]]'', November 23, 1995.</ref> Coupland first noticed that his art school friends were working in computers in 1992.<ref name="Mcclellan1">Mcclellan, Jim. "The Geek Factory". ''[[The Observer]]'', November 12, 1995.</ref>