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Ex-Google Employee Gets TV Deal for Book on Sex, Drugs, and Partying

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Hilary Brueck
Hilary Brueck
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By
Hilary Brueck
Hilary Brueck
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March 4, 2016, 10:06 AM ET
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MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA - MARCH 10: A bicyclist rides by a sign at the Google headquarters March 10, 2010 in Mountain View, California. Google announced today that they are adding bicycle routes to their popular Google Maps and is available in 150 U.S. cities. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)Phtotograph by Justin Sullivan — Getty Images

Sex, Drugs, and Silicon Valley.

That’s the basis for ex-Google employee Filip Syta’s novel “The Show,” released earlier this year.

Now Syta’s “Show” could be turned into an actual show. The book’s publisher, Inkshares, says it has sold television rights to the book. A kind of Wolf of Wall Street of the West Coast.

In 2014, Syta quit his job as an ad executive at Google to write about a fictional tech giant of Silicon Valley he calls “Show.” Syta, who hails from Sweden, told Business Insider that while the book is fiction, approximately 90% of the book was either true or inspired by real events. The book describes a culture of sex, drugs, and endless partying at an online advertising company.

Syta writes in the book, “It was like a crowded cage of animals—all drunk, horny, and invincible.”

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The book was published in January by Inkshares, an online publisher requiring writers to rack up at least 250 pre-orders from readers before the agency publishes a title.

News of the deal comes just Emma Watson and Tom Hanks prepare to star in The Circle, another Google-inspired movie based on the bestselling Dave Eggers novel. The book describes life in a kind of Facebook-meets-Google, Orwellian future in which one mega-tech corporation controls daily life, “arranging conversations, restocking pantries, making payments, and ranking human beings,” as The New Yorker put it. The Circle is currently in post-production.

Of course, in reality, Google might not be such a bad place to work. The company topped Fortune’s list of 100 Best Companies To Work For for the seventh time this year.

Correction (Mar. 4 2:51 pm E.T.): An earlier version of this story cited Business Insider as reporting the book will be turned into a movie. A spokesperson for Inkshares told Fortune it has sold the rights for a television show, not a movie.

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By Hilary Brueck
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