The thirty-five essays woven into this work draw upon the real-life sacrifices, hard work, and affectations the author himself, a former California-based engineer at Google, experienced and applied in ascending the rungs of an unapologetically merit-based culture that warps personal values and ruins one’s closest relationships.

Following up on Spent Bullets, Terao’s 2022 short story collection centered around the deleterious psychological effects of high-pressure corporate culture on a talented team of young engineers, Overfitting picks up on the rampant thirst for success and approbation running through the high tech industry. Overfitting fleshes out further the universe established in Spent Bullets and, in addition to previously met male love interests and engineers, readers come to know the main characters’ parents, female friends, and followed celebrities.

In this book in four parts, the first takes readers along the difficult path followed by most overseas engineering students studying in the United States, which often leads for the most zealous to a lucrative Stateside job offer and enviable career prospects. But the accompanying emptiness is sometimes sated in ways “normal” society simply cannot fathom. The second part lifts the lid on how engineers, constantly driven to outperform and outdo, actually feel about their corporate organizations and unmasks the cynicism roiling beneath a placid veneer. In the third part, the spotlight turns on overfitting in other contexts, including the heel-turn a group of brand-name-chasing women make when they discover a woefully plainly dressed woman in their cooking class is married and living in the United States and the showstopping suicide of a startup mogul. In the final part, drawing on his own stories and experiences, the author dissects the family, cultural, and educational roots of the overfitting phenomenon that fuels high-tech “hustle” culture today.

The author’s well-honed and direct style gives the stories within, while reflective of Terao’s owned lived experience, a lively pace and strong literary appeal, and chips away at some of the tech industry’s glamorous sheen to reveal the pervasive resentment and anxiety within. While high tech’s lauded engineers bent on overfitting at all costs come off as pitiable, the narrative shows that, despite the high cost in terms of physical and mental health, these high-paying jobs still afford a good life for them and their family. After all, one’s chosen path in life, one’s work ethic, and how one chooses to live their life all reflect a deeper personal truth.