Before joining a startup, read this book and be warned

When tech journalist Dan Lyons suddenly found himself jobless at age 51, he landed a job at one of the hottest then-startups in the Boston area: HubSpot, a company that makes what it calls "marketing automation" software.

He hoped he had finally "made" it, leaping from the world of writing about startup employees becoming rich to one of those people who would get rich on stock options.

Instead, he had landed in place that was more cult than company, he describes in his new book "Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble."

He describes a year that began in scoffing disbelief, led to a series of humiliating events, and ended with a torrent of abuse from his boss. He hung on until just after HubSpot went public, making about $60,000 on his stock options.

The book is a hilarious and eye-opening. Lyons is best known in the tech world for his satirical work as Fake Steve Jobs, where he wrote The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, which later became a book. He's also a screen writer for the HBO hit "Silicon Valley." He was a technology editor for Newsweek, the editor for the ReadWrite blog and worked for Forbes.

The book is also the source of controversy.

Before it was published, one of the managers featured in it was fired, and another quit before he could be fired. The CEO of HubSpot was also censured. They were involved in a scandal that involved "email hacking" and "extortion: in attempt to keep the book from being published, FBI documents revealed.