Josh's bookshelf: history-of-technology en-US Sun, 05 Jan 2025 11:06:32 -0800 60 Josh's bookshelf: history-of-technology 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power]]> 169354 The Prize recounts the panoramic history of oil -- and the struggle for wealth and power that has always surrounded oil. This struggle has shaken the world economy, dictated the outcome of wars, and transformed the destiny of men and nations.

The Prize is as much a history of the twentieth century as of the oil industry itself. The canvas of history is enormous -- from the drilling of the first well in Pennsylvania through two great world wars to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Operation Desert Storm.]]> 928 Daniel Yergin 0671799320 Josh 5 4.43 1991 The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power
author: Daniel Yergin
name: Josh
average rating: 4.43
book published: 1991
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/05
date added: 2025/01/05
shelves: economic-history, business-histories, history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Nvidia Way: Jensen Huang and the Making of a Tech Giant]]> 218319936 "The definitive look at the most remarkable business story of this era."

—Morgan Housel, New York Times best-selling author of The Psychology of Money and Same As Ever



"The Nvidia Way is a riveting history of Nvidia’s unexpected ascent to the top of the tech sector—and a compelling case for why cofounder Jensen Huang is one of history’s great CEOs."

—Chris Miller, New York Times best-selling author of Chip The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology



A deeply reported business history of the chip-designer Nvidia—from its founding in 1993 to its recent emergence as one of the most valuable corporations in the world—explaining how the company’s culture, overseen by cofounder and CEO Jensen Huang, has powered its incredible success.


Nvidia is the darling of the age of artificial its chips are powering the generative-AI revolution, and demand is insatiable. For all the current interest and attention, however, Nvidia is not of our time. Founded more than three decades ago in a Denny’s in East San Jose, for years it was known primarily in the then-niche world of computer gaming. In fact, the company’s leather-jacketed leader, Jensen Huang, is the longest-serving CEO in an industry marked by near constant turmoil and failure.


In The Nvidia Way, acclaimed tech writer Tae Kim draws on more than one hundred interviews—including Jensen (as he is known) and his cofounders, the two original venture capital investors, early former employees, and current senior executives—to show how Nvidia played the longest of long games, repeatedly creating new markets and outmaneuvering competitors, including the original semiconductor giant, Intel, which now finds itself well behind the upstart. Kim offers revelations at every step, among



An authoritative, myth-busting account of Nvidia’s founding in 1993.
How Nvidia managed to overcome early missteps that would have killed most start-ups.
The benefits of Nvidia’s flat organizational structure, which allows even low-level employees to contribute to the direction of the company.
How Jensen’s obsession with solving the Innovator’s Dilemma—the problem of an entrenched market leader falling to smaller, nimbler companies—drove him to reinvent his approach to corporate strategy.
How Nvidia saw the coming AI wave sooner than anyone else, and how it bet its future on a technology that had not yet arrived.



A rare view into Nvidia’s distinct culture and Jensen’s management principles, The Nvidia Way is a book for our moment as well as an instant classic of business history, with enduring lessons for entrepreneurs and managers alike.]]> 268 Tae Kim 1324086726 Josh 5 4.36 The Nvidia Way: Jensen Huang and the Making of a Tech Giant
author: Tae Kim
name: Josh
average rating: 4.36
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/18
date added: 2024/12/18
shelves: history-of-technology, innovation, leadership, long-view, startups, strategy, company-culture
review:

]]> Elon Musk 122765395 From the author of Steve Jobs and other bestselling biographies, this is the astonishingly intimate story of the most fascinating and controversial innovator of our era—a rule-breaking visionary who helped to lead the world into the era of electric vehicles, private space exploration, and artificial intelligence. Oh, and took over Twitter.

When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.

His father’s impact on his psyche would linger. He developed into a tough yet vulnerable man-child, prone to abrupt Jekyll-and-Hyde mood swings, with an exceedingly high tolerance for risk, a craving for drama, an epic sense of mission, and a maniacal intensity that was callous and at times destructive.

At the beginning of 2022—after a year marked by SpaceX launching thirty-one rockets into orbit, Tesla selling a million cars, and him becoming the richest man on earth—Musk spoke ruefully about his compulsion to stir up dramas. “I need to shift my mindset away from being in crisis mode, which it has been for about fourteen years now, or arguably most of my life,� he said.

It was a wistful comment, not a New Year’s resolution. Even as he said it, he was secretly buying up shares of Twitter, the world’s ultimate playground. Over the years, whenever he was in a dark place, his mind went back to being bullied on the playground. Now he had the chance to own the playground.

For two years, Isaacson shadowed Musk, attended his meetings, walked his factories with him, and spent hours interviewing him, his family, friends, coworkers, and adversaries. The result is the revealing inside story, filled with amazing tales of triumphs and turmoil, that addresses the are the demons that drive Musk also what it takes to drive innovation and progress?]]> 688 Walter Isaacson 1982181281 Josh 4 history-of-technology 4.28 2023 Elon Musk
author: Walter Isaacson
name: Josh
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/14
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness]]> 171681821
A must-read for all parents: the generation-defining investigation into the collapse of youth mental health in the era of smartphones, social media, and big tech—and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood.

“With tenacity and candor, Haidt lays out the consequences that have come with allowing kids to drift further into the virtual world . . . While also offering suggestions and solutions that could help protect a new generation of kids.� —Shannon Carlin, ,i>TIME, 100 Must-Read Books of 2024

After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why?

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood� began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood� in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood� has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems� that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.

Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.]]> 400 Jonathan Haidt 0593655036 Josh 5 history-of-technology 4.36 2024 The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
author: Jonathan Haidt
name: Josh
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/06
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation]]> 11797471 432 Jon Gertner 1594203288 Josh 5 history-of-technology 4.16 2012 The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation
author: Jon Gertner
name: Josh
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/04
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World]]> 507952 Empires of Light, historian Jill Jonnes portrays this extraordinary trio and their riveting and ruthless world of cutting-edge science, invention, intrigue, money, death, and hard-eyed Wall Street millionaires. At the heart of the story are Thomas Alva Edison, the nation’s most famous and folksy inventor, creator of the incandescent light bulb and mastermind of the world’s first direct current electrical light networks; the Serbian wizard of invention Nikola Tesla, elegant, highly eccentric, a dreamer who revolutionized the generation and delivery of electricity; and the charismatic George Westinghouse, Pittsburgh inventor and tough corporate entrepreneur, an industrial idealist who in the era of gaslight imagined a world powered by cheap and plentiful electricity and worked heart and soul to create it.

Edison struggled to introduce his radical new direct current (DC) technology into the hurly-burly of New York City as Tesla and Westinghouse challenged his dominance with their alternating current (AC), thus setting the stage for one of the eeriest feuds in American corporate history, the War of the Electric Currents. The battlegrounds: Wall Street, the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, Niagara Falls, and, finally, the death chamber - Jonnes takes us on the tense walk down a prison hallway and into the sunlit room where William Kemmler, convicted ax murderer, became the first man to die in the electric chair.

Empires of Light is the gripping history of electricity, the “mysterious fluid,� and how the fateful collision of Edison, Tesla, and Westinghouse left the world utterly transformed.]]> 464 Jill Jonnes 0375758844 Josh 4 history-of-technology 4.02 2003 Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World
author: Jill Jonnes
name: Josh
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/07
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Make a Few Billion Dollars]]> 199249408 � achieving lots of high-quality M&A without imploding,
� building an outrageously talented team,
� catalyzing electric meetings, and
� transforming a company into a superorganism that kills the competition. How to Make a Few Billion Dollars is an inside look at how this entrepreneurial titan leads with humility, compassion, and accountability, while running hard toward the American Dream. If your personal dream is to create wealth through free markets or to triumph in sports, the arts, politics, philanthropy, or any other part of your life, this book will help you make that a reality.]]> 272 Brad Jacobs Josh 4 history-of-technology 3.85 How to Make a Few Billion Dollars
author: Brad Jacobs
name: Josh
average rating: 3.85
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/08
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West]]> 75243

Winner of the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize]]> 592 William Cronon 0393308731 Josh 4 history-of-technology 4.25 1991 Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West
author: William Cronon
name: Josh
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1991
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/22
date added: 2023/07/22
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything In Between]]> 61327449 The secrets to successfully planning and delivering projects on any scale—from home renovation to space exploration—by the world’s leading expert on megaprojects

“This book is important, timely, instructive, and entertaining. What more could you ask for?”—Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize–winning author of Thinking, Fast and Slow

“Over-budget and over-schedule is an inevitability. Incompetence and grift is outrageous. Bent Flyvbjerg, with this terrific data-driven book, has shown that there is another way.”—Frank Gehry

Nothing is more inspiring than a big vision that becomes a triumphant, newreality. Think of how the Empire State Building went from a sketch to the jewel of New York’s skyline in twenty-one months, or how Apple’s iPod went from a project with a single employee to a product launch in eleven months.

These are wonderful stories. But most of the time big visions turn into nightmares. Remember Boston’s “Big Dig�? Almost every sizeable city in the world has such a fiasco in its backyard. In fact, no less than 92% of megaprojects come in over budget or over schedule, or both. The cost of California’s high-speed rail project soared from $33 billion to $100 billon—and won’t even go where promised. More modest endeavors, whether launching a small business, organizing a conference, or just finishing a work project on time, also commonly fail. Why?

Understanding what distinguishes the triumphs from the failures has been the life’s work of Oxford professor Bent Flyvbjerg, dubbed “the world’s leading megaproject expert.� In How Big Things Get Done, he identifies the errors in judgment and decision-making that lead projects, both big and small, to fail, and the research-based principles that will make you succeed with yours. For example:

� Understand your odds. If you don’t know them, you won’t win.
� Plan slow, act fast. Getting to the action quick feels right. But it’s wrong.
� Think right to left. Start with your goal, then identify the steps to get there.
� Find your Lego. Big is best built from small.
� Be a team maker. You won’t succeed without an “us.�
� Master the unknown unknowns. Most think they can’t, so they fail. Flyvbjerg shows how you can.
� Know that your biggest risk is you.

Full of vivid examples ranging from the building of the Sydney Opera House, to the making of the latest Pixar blockbusters, to a home renovation in Brooklyn gone awry, How Big Things Get Done reveals how to get any ambitious project done—on time and on budget.]]> 304 Bent Flyvbjerg 0593239512 Josh 5 history-of-technology 4.28 2023 How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything In Between
author: Bent Flyvbjerg
name: Josh
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/20
date added: 2023/05/20
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Deep Learning Revolution (Mit Press)]]> 36722636 352 Terrence J. Sejnowski 026203803X Josh 4 history-of-technology, ai 3.72 2018 The Deep Learning Revolution (Mit Press)
author: Terrence J. Sejnowski
name: Josh
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2021/12/19
date added: 2023/04/18
shelves: history-of-technology, ai
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration]]> 18077903 “What does it mean to manage well?�
From Ed Catmull, co-founder (with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter) of Pixar Animation Studios, comes an incisive book about creativity in business—sure to appeal to readers of Daniel Pink, Tom Peters, and Chip and Dan Heath. Creativity, Inc. is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, a manual for anyone who strives for originality, and the first-ever, all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation—into the meetings, postmortems, and “Braintrust� sessions where some of the most successful films in history are made. It is, at heart, a book about how to build a creative culture—but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, “an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.� For nearly twenty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner thirty Academy Awards. The joyousness of the storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, in this book, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable.

As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, where many computer science pioneers got their start, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the thirteen movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as:

� Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team, and they will either fix it or come up with something better.
� If you don’t strive to uncover what is unseen and understand its nature, you will be ill prepared to lead.
� It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them.
� The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them.
� A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody.
� Do not assume that general agreement will lead to change—it takes substantial energy to move a group, even when all are on board.]]> 368 Ed Catmull 0812993012 Josh 5 history-of-technology 4.19 2014 Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration
author: Ed Catmull
name: Josh
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/09
date added: 2023/03/09
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies]]> 1842
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a national bestseller: the global account of the rise of civilization that is also a stunning refutation of ideas of human development based on race.

In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed writing, technology, government, and organized religion—as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war—and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth Club of California's Gold Medal]]> 498 Jared Diamond 0739467352 Josh 5 to-buy, history-of-technology 4.04 1997 Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
author: Jared Diamond
name: Josh
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: to-buy, history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood]]> 8701960 Chaos and Genius, now brings us a work just as astonishing and masterly: a revelatory chronicle and meditation that shows how information has become the modern era's defining quality—the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world.

The story of information begins in a time profoundly unlike our own, when every thought and utterance vanishes as soon as it is born. From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long-misunderstood talking drums of Africa, Gleick tells the story of information technologies that changed the very nature of human consciousness. He provides portraits of the key figures contributing to the inexorable development of our modern understanding of information: Charles Babbage, the idiosyncratic inventor of the first great mechanical computer; Ada Byron, the brilliant and doomed daughter of the poet, who became the first true programmer; pivotal figures like Samuel Morse and Alan Turing; and Claude Shannon, the creator of information theory itself.

And then the information age arrives. Citizens of this world become experts willy-nilly: aficionados of bits and bytes. And we sometimes feel we are drowning, swept by a deluge of signs and signals, news and images, blogs and tweets. The Information is the story of how we got here and where we are heading.]]> 527 James Gleick 0375423729 Josh 4 to-buy, history-of-technology 4.02 2011 The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
author: James Gleick
name: Josh
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: to-buy, history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers―Straight Talk on the Challenges of Entrepreneurship]]> 18176747
In The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz and one of Silicon Valley's most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, draws on his own story of founding, running, selling, buying, managing, and investing in technology companies to offer essential advice and practical wisdom for navigating the toughest problems business schools don't cover. His blog has garnered a devoted following of millions of readers who have come to rely on him to help them run their businesses. A lifelong rap fan, Horowitz amplifies business lessons with lyrics from his favorite songs and tells it straight about everything from firing friends to poaching competitors, from cultivating and sustaining a CEO mentality to knowing the right time to cash in.

His advice is grounded in anecdotes from his own hard-earned rise—from cofounding the early cloud service provider Loudcloud to building the phenomenally successful Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm, both with fellow tech superstar Marc Andreessen (inventor of Mosaic, the Internet's first popular Web browser). This is no polished victory lap; he analyzes issues with no easy answers through his trials, including demoting (or firing) a loyal friend;
whether you should incorporate titles and promotions, and how to handle them;
if it's OK to hire people from your friend's company; how to manage your own psychology, while the whole company is relying on you; what to do when smart people are bad employees; why Andreessen Horowitz prefers founder CEOs, and how to become one; whether you should sell your company, and how to do it.

Filled with Horowitz's trademark humor and straight talk, and drawing from his personal and often humbling experiences, The Hard Thing About Hard Things is invaluable for veteran entrepreneurs as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures.]]> 304 Ben Horowitz 0062273205 Josh 3 4.20 2014 The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers―Straight Talk on the Challenges of Entrepreneurship
author: Ben Horowitz
name: Josh
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2015/01/01
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: business, leadership, to-buy, history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future]]> 18050143
The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create. In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things.

Thiel begins with the contrarian premise that we live in an age of technological stagnation, even if we’re too distracted by shiny mobile devices to notice. Information technology has improved rapidly, but there is no reason why progress should be limited to computers or Silicon Valley. Progress can be achieved in any industry or area of business. It comes from the most important skill that every leader must master: learning to think for yourself.

Doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. Tomorrow’s champions will not win by competing ruthlessly in today’s marketplace. They will escape competition altogether, because their businesses will be unique.

Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places.]]> 195 Peter Thiel 0804139296 Josh 4 4.15 2014 Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
author: Peter Thiel
name: Josh
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2014/09/01
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: business, long-view, history-of-science, leadership, to-buy, history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies]]> 20527133 Superintelligence asks the questions: what happens when machines surpass humans in general intelligence? Will artificial agents save or destroy us? Nick Bostrom lays the foundation for understanding the future of humanity and intelligent life.

The human brain has some capabilities that the brains of other animals lack. It is to these distinctive capabilities that our species owes its dominant position. If machine brains surpassed human brains in general intelligence, then this new superintelligence could become extremely powerful—possibly beyond our control. As the fate of the gorillas now depends more on humans than on the species itself, so would the fate of humankind depend on the actions of the machine superintelligence.

But we have one advantage: we get to make the first move. Will it be possible to construct a seed Artificial Intelligence, to engineer initial conditions so as to make an intelligence explosion survivable? How could one achieve a controlled detonation?]]> 352 Nick Bostrom 0199678111 Josh 3 3.86 2014 Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies
author: Nick Bostrom
name: Josh
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2015/03/01
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: philosophy, long-view, history-of-science, to-buy, history-of-technology
review:

]]> Business adventures 4191136 This business classic written by longtime New Yorker contributor John Brooks is an insightful and engaging look into corporate and financial life in America.

What do the $350 million Ford Motor Company disaster known as the Edsel, the fast and incredible rise of Xerox, and the unbelievable scandals at General Electric and Texas Gulf Sulphur have in common? Each is an example of how an iconic company was defined by a particular moment of fame or notoriety.

These notable and fascinating accounts are as relevant today to understanding the intricacies of corporate life as they were when the events happened.

Stories about Wall Street are infused with drama and adventure and reveal the machinations and volatile nature of the world of finance. John Brooks’s insightful reportage is so full of personality and critical detail that whether he is looking at the astounding market crash of 1962, the collapse of a well-known brokerage firm, or the bold attempt by American bankers to save the British pound, one gets the sense that history really does repeat itself.]]> 408 John Brooks 0575003499 Josh 5
In some instances, finance and economics norms flip quickly, overwhelmed by a crashing wave of market forces (eg. the collapse of the gold standard and currency pegs in Europe and the United States) and sometimes they change gradually (eg. the decline in price-fixing schemes). But, the most important thing to remember is that the bedrock of expectations we have about the financial system is continually under pressure from tectonic forces that can reshuffle our expectations in dramatic ways.]]> 3.81 1969 Business adventures
author: John Brooks
name: Josh
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1969
rating: 5
read at: 2015/10/29
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: business, to-buy, history-of-technology
review:
There are some great lessons in this book on topics ranging from intellectual property to insider trading to the dangers of currency pegs. It's hard to see how the lessons tie together since the author has no explicit thesis. However, there is one particular theme that I found myself pondering as I finished the book: norms in finance and economics can change dramatically.

In some instances, finance and economics norms flip quickly, overwhelmed by a crashing wave of market forces (eg. the collapse of the gold standard and currency pegs in Europe and the United States) and sometimes they change gradually (eg. the decline in price-fixing schemes). But, the most important thing to remember is that the bedrock of expectations we have about the financial system is continually under pressure from tectonic forces that can reshuffle our expectations in dramatic ways.
]]> High Output Management 324750
The essential skill of creating and maintaining new businesses—the art of the entrepreneur—can be summed up in a single word: managing.Born of Grove’s experiences at one of America’s leading technology companies (as CEO and employee number three at Intel), High Output Management is equally appropriate for sales managers, accountants, consultants, and teachers, as well as CEOs and startup founders. Grove covers techniques for creating highly productive teams, demonstrating methods of motivation that lead to peak performance.

"Generous enough with advice and observations to be required reading."� The Wall Street Journal]]> 272 Andrew S. Grove 0679762884 Josh 5 4.27 1983 High Output Management
author: Andrew S. Grove
name: Josh
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1983
rating: 5
read at: 2017/05/28
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: business, learning, self, leadership, to-buy, history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies]]> 1839 The Rise of the West has become the central problem in the study of global history. In Guns, Germs, and Steel Jared Diamond presents the biologist's answer: geography, demography, and ecological happenstance. Diamond evenhandedly reviews human history on every continent since the Ice Age at a rate that emphasizes only the broadest movements of peoples and ideas. Yet his survey is binocular: one eye has the rather distant vision of the evolutionary biologist, while the other eye--and his heart--belongs to the people of New Guinea, where he has done field work for more than 30 years.]]> 518 Jared Diamond 0393061310 Josh 0 to-buy, history-of-technology 4.04 1997 Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
author: Jared Diamond
name: Josh
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: to-buy, history-of-technology
review:

]]> Inventing Japan: 1853-1964 251348
What explains the seismic changes that thrust this small island nation so violently onto the world stage? In part, Ian Buruma argues, the story is one of a newly united nation that felt it must play catch-up to the established Western powers, just as Germany and Italy did, a process that involved, in addition to outward colonial expansion, internal cultural consolidation and the manufacturing of a shared heritage. But Japan has always been both particularly open to the importation of good ideas and particularly prickly about keeping their influence quarantined, a bipolar disorder that would have dramatic consequences and that continues to this day. If one book is to be read in order to understand why the Japanese seem so impossibly strange to many Americans, Inventing Japan is surely it.]]> 194 Ian Buruma 0812972864 Josh 0 to-buy, history-of-technology 3.66 2003 Inventing Japan: 1853-1964
author: Ian Buruma
name: Josh
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: to-buy, history-of-technology
review:

]]> The Wright Brothers 22609391 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize David McCullough tells the dramatic story-behind-the-story about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly: Wilbur and Orville Wright.

On a winter day in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, two unknown brothers from Ohio changed history. But it would take the world some time to believe what had happened: the age of flight had begun, with the first heavier-than-air, powered machine carrying a pilot.

Who were these men and how was it that they achieved what they did?

David McCullough, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, tells the surprising, profoundly American story of Wilbur and Orville Wright.

Far more than a couple of unschooled Dayton bicycle mechanics who happened to hit on success, they were men of exceptional courage and determination, and of far-ranging intellectual interests and ceaseless curiosity, much of which they attributed to their upbringing. The house they lived in had no electricity or indoor plumbing, but there were books aplenty, supplied mainly by their preacher father, and they never stopped reading.

When they worked together, no problem seemed to be insurmountable. Wilbur was unquestionably a genius. Orville had such mechanical ingenuity as few had ever seen. That they had no more than a public high school education, little money and no contacts in high places, never stopped them in their mission to take to the air. Nothing did, not even the self-evident reality that every time they took off in one of their contrivances, they risked being killed.

In this thrilling book, master historian David McCullough draws on the immense riches of the Wright Papers, including private diaries, notebooks, scrapbooks, and more than a thousand letters from private family correspondence to tell the human side of the Wright Brothers' story, including the little-known contributions of their sister, Katharine, without whom things might well have gone differently for them.]]> 320 David McCullough Josh 4 history-of-technology 4.14 2015 The Wright Brothers
author: David McCullough
name: Josh
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2017/12/09
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Structure of Scientific Revolutions]]> 61539 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is that kind of book. When it was first published in 1962, it was a landmark event in the history and philosophy of science. Fifty years later, it still has many lessons to teach.

With The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn challenged long-standing linear notions of scientific progress, arguing that transformative ideas don’t arise from the day-to-day, gradual process of experimentation and data accumulation but that the revolutions in science, those breakthrough moments that disrupt accepted thinking and offer unanticipated ideas, occur outside of “normal science,� as he called it. Though Kuhn was writing when physics ruled the sciences, his ideas on how scientific revolutions bring order to the anomalies that amass over time in research experiments are still instructive in our biotech age.

This new edition of Kuhn’s essential work in the history of science includes an insightful introduction by Ian Hacking, which clarifies terms popularized by Kuhn, including paradigm and incommensurability, and applies Kuhn’s ideas to the science of today. Usefully keyed to the separate sections of the book, Hacking’s introduction provides important background information as well as a contemporary context. Newly designed, with an expanded index, this edition will be eagerly welcomed by the next generation of readers seeking to understand the history of our perspectives on science.]]> 226 Thomas S. Kuhn 0226458083 Josh 5 4.03 1962 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
author: Thomas S. Kuhn
name: Josh
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at: 2009/05/01
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: history, history-of-science, long-view, science, favorites, to-buy, history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer]]> 80571
J. Robert Oppenheimer is one of the iconic figures of the twentieth century, a brilliant physicist who led the effort to build the atomic bomb for his country in a time of war and who later found himself confronting the moral consequences of scientific progress.

When he proposed international controls over atomic materials, opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb, and criticized plans for a nuclear war, his ideas were anathema to powerful advocates of a massive nuclear buildup during the anti-Communist hysteria of the early 1950s. They declared that Oppenheimer could not be trusted with America’s nuclear secrets.

In this magisterial biography twenty-five years in the making, which won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for biography, the authors capture Oppenheimer’s life and times, from his early career to his central role in the Cold War.]]> 721 Kai Bird Josh 4 4.27 2005 American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
author: Kai Bird
name: Josh
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2017/02/10
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: biography, american-history, history-of-science, long-view, physics, self, leadership, to-buy, history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business]]> 2615
Focusing on "disruptive technology" -- the Honda Super Cub, Intel's 8088 processor, or the hydraulic excavator, for example -- Christensen shows why most companies miss "the next great wave." Whether in electronics or retailing, a successful company with established products will get pushed aside unless managers know when to abandon traditional business practices. Using the lessons of successes and failures from leading companies, "The Innovator's Dilemma" presents a set of rules for capitalizing on the phenomenon of disruptive innovation.]]> 320 Clayton M. Christensen 0060521996 Josh 5 to-buy, history-of-technology 4.03 1997 The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business
author: Clayton M. Christensen
name: Josh
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at: 2017/12/27
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: to-buy, history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt]]> 4839382 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

In this groundbreaking biography, T.J. Stiles tells the dramatic story of Cornelius “Commodore� Vanderbilt, the combative man and American icon who, through his genius and force of will, did more than perhaps any other individual to create modern capitalism. Meticulously researched and elegantly written, The First Tycoon describes an improbable life, from Vanderbilt’s humble birth during the presidency of George Washington to his death as one of the richest men in American history. In between we see how the Commodore helped to launch the transportation revolution, propel the Gold Rush, reshape Manhattan, and invent the modern corporation. Epic in its scope and success, the life of Vanderbilt is also the story of the rise of America itself.]]> 736 T.J. Stiles 0375415424 Josh 4 3.87 2009 The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt
author: T.J. Stiles
name: Josh
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2018/03/04
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: american-history, biography, leadership, history-of-technology
review:

]]> The Lean Startup 10127019 Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.

Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business.



The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on "validated learning," rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute.

Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs - in companies of all sizes - a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it's too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.]]> 299 Eric Ries 0307887898 Josh 0 history-of-technology 4.11 2011 The Lean Startup
author: Eric Ries
name: Josh
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2011/01/01
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> Competing Against Luck 28820024
How do companies know how to grow? How can they create products that they are sure customers want to buy? Can innovation be more than a game of hit and miss? Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen has the answer. A generation ago, Christensen revolutionized business with his groundbreaking theory of disruptive innovation. Now, he goes further, offering powerful new insights.

After years of research, Christensen has come to one critical conclusion: our long held maxim—that understanding the customer is the crux of innovation—is wrong. Customers don’t buy products or services; they "hire" them to do a job. Understanding customers does not drive innovation success, he argues. Understanding customer jobs does. The "Jobs to Be Done" approach can be seen in some of the world’s most respected companies and fast-growing startups, including Amazon, Intuit, Uber, Airbnb, and Chobani yogurt, to name just a few. But this book is not about celebrating these successes—it’s about predicting new ones.

Christensen contends that by understanding what causes customers to "hire" a product or service, any business can improve its innovation track record, creating products that customers not only want to hire, but that they’ll pay premium prices to bring into their lives. Jobs theory offers new hope for growth to companies frustrated by their hit and miss efforts.

This book carefully lays down Christensen’s provocative framework, providing a comprehensive explanation of the theory and why it is predictive, how to use it in the real world—and, most importantly, how not to squander the insights it provides.]]> 288 Clayton M. Christensen 0062435639 Josh 5 4.10 2016 Competing Against Luck
author: Clayton M. Christensen
name: Josh
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2018/12/09
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: 2018-goal, history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman]]> 98685
Raised in Depression-era Rockaway Beach, physicist Richard Feynman was irreverent, eccentric, and childishly enthusiastic—a new kind of scientist in a field that was in its infancy. His quick mastery of quantum mechanics earned him a place at Los Alamos working on the Manhattan Project under J. Robert Oppenheimer, where the giddy young man held his own among the nation’s greatest minds. There, Feynman turned theory into practice, culminating in the Trinity test, on July 16, 1945, when the Atomic Age was born. He was only twenty-seven. And he was just getting started.

In this sweeping biography, James Gleick captures the forceful personality of a great man, integrating Feynman’s work and life in a way that is accessible to laymen and fascinating for the scientists who follow in his footsteps.]]> 531 James Gleick 0679747044 Josh 3 history-of-technology 4.11 Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman
author: James Gleick
name: Josh
average rating: 4.11
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2020/01/17
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge]]> 2369 Published on the fortieth anniversary of its initial publication, this edition of the classic book contains a new Preface by David McCullough, “one of our most gifted living writers� (The Washington Post).

Built to join the rapidly expanding cities of New York and Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Bridge was thought by many at the start to be an impossibility destined to fail if not from insurmountable technical problems then from political corruption. (It was the heyday of Boss Tweed in New York.)

But the Brooklyn Bridge was at once the greatest engineering triumph of the age, a surpassing work of art, a proud American icon, and a story like no other in our history. Courage, chicanery, unprecedented ingenuity and plain blundering, heroes, rascals, all the best and worst in human nature played a part. At the center of the drama were the stricken chief engineer, Washington Roebling and his remarkable wife, Emily Warren Roebling, neither of whom ever gave up in the face of one heartbreaking setback after another.

The Great Bridge is a sweeping narrative of a stupendous American achievement that rose up out of its era like a cathedral, a symbol of affirmation then and still in our time.

]]> 608 David McCullough 0743217373 Josh 4 history-of-technology 4.24 1972 The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge
author: David McCullough
name: Josh
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1972
rating: 4
read at: 2020/05/25
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> Steve Jobs 11084145 630 Walter Isaacson 1451648537 Josh 4 history-of-technology 4.15 2011 Steve Jobs
author: Walter Isaacson
name: Josh
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2020/10/28
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Leap: How to Thrive in a World Where Everything Can Be Copied]]> 36342258
In a book of narrative history and practical strategy, IMD professor of management and innovation Howard Yu shows that succeeding in today's marketplace is no longer just a matter of mastering copycat tactics, companies also need to leap across knowledge disciplines, and to reimagine how a product is made or a service is delivered. This proven tactic can protect a company from being overtaken by new (and often foreign) copycat competitors.

Using riveting case studies of successful leaps and tragic falls, Yu illustrates five principles to success that span a wide range of industries, countries, and eras. Learn about how P&G in the 19th century made the leap from handcrafted soaps and candles to mass production of its signature brand Ivory, leaped into the new fields of consumer psychology and advertising, then leaped again, at the risk of cannibalizing its core product, into synthetic detergents and won with Tide in 1946. Learn about how Novartis and other pharma pioneers stayed ahead by making leaps from chemistry to microbiology to genomics in drug discovery; and how forward-thinking companies, including China's largest social media app--WeChat, Tokyo-based Internet service provider Recruit Holdings, and Illinois-headquartered John Deere are leaping ahead by leveraging the emergence of ubiquitous connectivity, the inexorable rise of intelligent machines, and the rising importance of managerial creativity.

Outlasting competition is difficult; doing so over decades or a century is nearly impossible--unless one leaps. Ultimately, Leap is a manifesto for how pioneering companies can endure and prosper in a world of constant change and inevitable copycats. ]]> 288 Howard Yu 1610398815 Josh 3 history-of-technology 3.56 Leap: How to Thrive in a World Where Everything Can Be Copied
author: Howard Yu
name: Josh
average rating: 3.56
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2020/10/31
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture]]> 148821 192 Ross King 0142000159 Josh 3 history-of-technology 3.89 1999 Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture
author: Ross King
name: Josh
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1999
rating: 3
read at: 2021/05/24
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age]]> 32919530 The life and times of one of the foremost intellects of the twentieth century: Claude Shannon—the neglected architect of the Information Age, whose insights stand behind every computer built, email sent, video streamed, and webpage loaded.

Claude Shannon was a groundbreaking polymath, a brilliant tinkerer, and a digital pioneer. He constructed a fleet of customized unicycles and a flamethrowing trumpet, outfoxed Vegas casinos, and built juggling robots. He also wrote the seminal text of the digital revolution, which has been called “the Magna Carta of the Information Age.� His discoveries would lead contemporaries to compare him to Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton. His work anticipated by decades the world we’d be living in today—and gave mathematicians and engineers the tools to bring that world to pass.

In this elegantly written, exhaustively researched biography, Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman reveal Claude Shannon’s full story for the first time. It’s the story of a small-town Michigan boy whose career stretched from the era of room-sized computers powered by gears and string to the age of Apple. It’s the story of the origins of our digital world in the tunnels of MIT and the “idea factory� of Bell Labs, in the “scientists� war� with Nazi Germany, and in the work of Shannon’s collaborators and rivals, thinkers like Alan Turing, John von Neumann, Vannevar Bush, and Norbert Wiener.

And it’s the story of Shannon’s life as an often reclusive, always playful genius. With access to Shannon’s family and friends, A Mind at Play brings this singular innovator and creative genius to life.]]> 384 Jimmy Soni 1476766681 Josh 4 history-of-technology 4.12 2017 A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age
author: Jimmy Soni
name: Josh
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2021/10/09
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It]]> 42348376 A Wall Street Journal Bestseller!

What are venture capitalists saying about your startup behind closed doors? And what can you do to influence that conversation?

If Silicon Valley is the greatest wealth-generating machine in the world, Sand Hill Road is its humming engine. That's where you'll find the biggest names in venture capital, including famed VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, where lawyer-turned-entrepreneur-turned-VC Scott Kupor serves as managing partner.

Whether you're trying to get a new company off the ground or scale an existing business to the next level, you need to understand how VCs think. In Secrets of Sand Hill Road, Kupor explains exactly how VCs decide where and how much to invest, and how entrepreneurs can get the best possible deal and make the most of their relationships with VCs. Kupor explains, for instance:

- Why most VCs typically invest in only one startup in a given business category.

- Why the skill you need most when raising venture capital is the ability to tell a compelling story.

- How to handle a "down round," when startups have to raise funds at a lower valuation than in the previous round.

- What to do when VCs get too entangled in the day-to-day operations of the business.

- Why you need to build relationships with potential acquirers long before you decide to sell.

Filled with Kupor's firsthand experiences, insider advice, and practical takeaways, Secrets of Sand Hill Road is the guide every entrepreneur needs to turn their startup into the next unicorn.]]> 320 Scott Kupor 059308358X Josh 0 history-of-technology 4.21 2019 Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It
author: Scott Kupor
name: Josh
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2022/01/06
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future]]> 25541028 392 Ashlee Vance 0062301233 Josh 4 history-of-technology 4.12 2015 Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
author: Ashlee Vance
name: Josh
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/13
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed]]> 101438 382 Ben R. Rich Josh 4 history-of-technology 4.45 1994 Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed
author: Ben R. Rich
name: Josh
average rating: 4.45
book published: 1994
rating: 4
read at: 2022/09/18
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology]]> 60321447
You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil—the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everything� from missiles to microwaves, smartphones to the stock market � runs on chips. Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the #1 superpower. Now, America's edge isslipping, undermined by competitors in Taiwan, Korea,Europe, and, above all, China. Today, as Chip War reveals, China, which spends more money each year importing chips than it spends importing oil,is pouring billions into a chip-building initiative to catch up to the US. At stake is America's military superiority and economic prosperity.

Economic historian Chris Miller explains how the semiconductor came to play a critical role in modern life and how the U.S. become dominant in chip design and manufacturing and applied this technology to military systems. America's victory in the Cold War and its global military dominance stems from its ability to harness computing power more effectively than any other power. But here, too, China is catching up, with its chip-building ambitions and military modernization going hand in hand.America has let key components of the chip-building process slip out of its grasp, contributing not only to a worldwide chip shortage but also a new Cold War with a superpower adversary that is desperate to bridge the gap.

Illuminating, timely, and fascinating, Chip War shows that, to make sense of the current state of politics, economics, and technology, we must first understand the vital role played by chips.]]> 464 Chris Miller 1982172002 Josh 5 history-of-technology 4.38 2022 Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology
author: Chris Miller
name: Josh
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2022/12/03
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries]]> 10822774 Based on deep and extensive research, including more than 200 interviews with leading innovators, Sims discovered that productive, creative thinkers and doers—from Ludwig van Beethoven to Thomas Edison and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos—practice a key set of simple but ingenious experimental methods—such as failing quickly to learn fast, tapping into the genius of play, and engaging in highly immersed observation—that free their minds, opening them up to making unexpected connections and perceiving invaluable insights. These methods also unshackle them from the constraints of overly analytical thinking and linear problem solving that our education places so much emphasis on, as well as from the fear of failure, all of which thwart so many of us in trying to be more innovative.
Reporting on a fascinating range of research, from the psychology of creative blocks to the influential Silicon Valley–based field of design thinking, Sims offers engaging and wonderfully illuminating accounts of breakthrough innovators at work, including how Hewlett-Packard stumbled onto the breakaway success of the first hand-held calculator; the remarkable storyboarding process at Pixar films that has been the key to their unbroken streak of box office successes; the playful discovery process by which Frank Gehry arrived at his critically acclaimed design for Disney Hall; the aha revelation that led Amazon to pursue its wildly successful affiliates program; and the U.S. Army’s ingenious approach to counterinsurgency operations that led to the dramatic turnaround in Iraq.
Fast paced and as entertaining as it is illuminating, Little Bets offers a whole new way of thinking about how to break away from the narrow strictures of the methods of analyzing and problem solving we were all taught in school and unleash our untapped creative powers.]]> 224 Peter Sims 1439170428 Josh 3 history-of-technology 3.76 2011 Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries
author: Peter Sims
name: Josh
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2022/12/17
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation]]> 8034188 326 Steven Johnson 1594487715 Josh 5 - Innovations often accrete into high value due to flow of ideas across networks
- Exaptation is powerful source of new ideas and works by cross-pollination of ideas
- Interesting comparison of the primordial soup that enables amino acid formation and recombination and the dream state which enables recombination of ideas into new forms/solutions.
- Great breakdown into quadrants in final chapter of ideas that were (not) market/network based.]]> 3.99 2010 Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation
author: Steven Johnson
name: Josh
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2022/12/18
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: history-of-science, history, long-view, to-buy, history-of-technology
review:
- Focus on the adjacent possible
- Innovations often accrete into high value due to flow of ideas across networks
- Exaptation is powerful source of new ideas and works by cross-pollination of ideas
- Interesting comparison of the primordial soup that enables amino acid formation and recombination and the dream state which enables recombination of ideas into new forms/solutions.
- Great breakdown into quadrants in final chapter of ideas that were (not) market/network based.
]]> The Soul of a New Machine 7090 The Soul of a New Machine, tells stories of 35-year-old "veteran" engineers hiring recent college graduates and encouraging them to work harder and faster on complex and difficult projects, exploiting the youngsters' ignorance of normal scheduling processes while engendering a new kind of work ethic.

These days, we are used to the "total commitment" philosophy of managing technical creation, but Kidder was surprised and even a little alarmed at the obsessions and compulsions he found. From in-house political struggles to workers being permitted to tease management to marathon 24-hour work sessions, The Soul of a New Machine explores concepts that already seem familiar, even old-hat, less than 20 years later. Kidder plainly admires his subjects; while he admits to hopeless confusion about their work, he finds their dedication heroic. The reader wonders, though, what will become of it all, now and in the future. —Rob Lightner]]> 293 Tracy Kidder 0316491977 Josh 5 history-of-technology 4.10 1981 The Soul of a New Machine
author: Tracy Kidder
name: Josh
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1981
rating: 5
read at: 2021/10/17
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation]]> 255132
Frans Johansson’s The Medici Effect shows how breakthrough ideas most often occur when we bring concepts from one field into a new, unfamiliar territory, and offers examples how we can turn the ideas we discover into path-breaking innovations.]]> 207 Frans Johansson 1422102823 Josh 4 history-of-technology 3.91 2004 The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation
author: Frans Johansson
name: Josh
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2023/02/18
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future]]> 58009109
Named a Best Book of 2022 by The Economist

“A gripping fly-on-the-wall story of the rise of this unique and important industry based on extensive interviews with some of the most successful venture capitalists.� - Daniel Rasmussen, Wall Street Journal

“A must-read for anyone seeking to understand modern-day Silicon Valley and even our economy writ large.� -Bethany McLean, The Washington Post

"A rare and unsettling look inside asubculture of unparalleled influence.� —Jane Mayer

"A classic...A book of exceptional reporting, analysis and storytelling.� —Charles Duhigg

From the New York Times bestselling author of More Money Than God comes the astonishingly frank and intimate story of Silicon Valley’s dominant venture-capital firms—and how their strategies and fates have shaped the path of innovation and the global economy

Innovations rarely come from “experts.� Elon Musk was not an “electric car person� before he started Tesla. When it comes to improbable innovations, a legendary tech VC told Sebastian Mallaby, the future cannot be predicted , it can only be discovered . It is the nature of the venture-capital game that most attempts at discovery fail, but a very few succeed at such a scale that they more than make up for everything else. That extreme ratio of success and failure is the power law that drives the VC business, all of Silicon Valley, the wider tech sector, and, by extension, the world.

In The Power Law , Sebastian Mallaby has parlayed unprecedented access to the most celebrated venture capitalists of all time—the key figures at Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, Accel, Benchmark, and Andreessen Horowitz, as well as Chinese partnerships such as Qiming and Capital Today—into a riveting blend of storytelling and analysis that unfurls the history of tech incubation, in the Valley and ultimately worldwide. We learn the unvarnished truth, often for the first time, about some of the most iconic triumphs and infamous disasters in Valley history, from the comedy of errors at the birth of Apple to the avalanche of venture money that fostered hubris at WeWork and Uber.

VCs� relentless search for grand slams brews an obsession with the ideal of the lone entrepreneur-genius, and companies seen as potential “unicorns� are given intoxicating amounts of power, with sometimes disastrous results. On a more systemic level, the need to make outsized bets on unproven talent reinforces bias, with women and minorities still represented at woefully low levels. This does not just have social justice as Mallaby relates, China’s homegrown VC sector, having learned at the Valley’s feet, is exploding and now has more women VC luminaries than America has ever had. Still, Silicon Valley VC remains the top incubator of business innovation anywhere—it is not where ideas come from so much as where they go to become the products and companies that create the future. By taking us so deeply into the VCs� game, The Power Law helps us think about our own future through their eyes.]]> 496 Sebastian Mallaby 052555999X Josh 5 history-of-technology 4.41 2022 The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future
author: Sebastian Mallaby
name: Josh
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/25
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[For Profit: A History of Corporations]]> 60568507
From legacy manufacturers to emerging tech giants, corporations wield significant power over our lives, our economy, and our politics. Some celebrate them as engines of progress and prosperity. Others argue that they recklessly pursue profit at the expense of us all.

In For Profit , law professor William Magnuson reveals that both visions contain an element of truth. The story of the corporation is a human story, about a diverse group of merchants, bankers, and investors that have over time come to shape the landscape of our modern economy. Its central characters include both the brave, powerful, and ingenious and the conniving, fraudulent, and vicious. At times, these characters have been one and the same.

Yet as Magnuson shows, while corporations haven’t always behaved admirably, their purpose is a noble one. From their beginnings in the Roman Republic, corporations have been designed to promote the common good. By recapturing this spirit of civic virtue, For Profit argues, corporations can help craft a society in which all of us—not just shareholders—benefit from the profits of enterprise.]]> 357 William Magnuson 1541601564 Josh 5 history-of-technology 3.94 For Profit: A History of Corporations
author: William Magnuson
name: Josh
average rating: 3.94
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/03
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization]]> 58782897 2019 was the last great year for the world economy.

For generations, everything has been getting faster, better, and cheaper. Finally, we reached the point that almost anything you could ever want could be sent to your home within days - even hours - of when you decided you wanted it.

America made that happen, but now America has lost interest in keeping it going.

Globe-spanning supply chains are only possible with the protection of the U.S. Navy. The American dollar underpins internationalized energy and financial markets. Complex, innovative industries were created to satisfy American consumers. American security policy forced warring nations to lay down their arms. Billions of people have been fed and educated as the American-led trade system spread across the globe.

All of this was artificial. All this was temporary. All this is ending.

In The End of the World is Just the Beginning, author and geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan maps out the next world: a world where countries or regions will have no choice but to make their own goods, grow their own food, secure their own energy, fight their own battles, and do it all with populations that are both shrinking and aging.

The list of countries that make it all work is smaller than you think. Which means everything about our interconnected world - from how we manufacture products, to how we grow food, to how we keep the lights on, to how we shuttle stuff about, to how we pay for it all - is about to change.

A world ending. A world beginning. Zeihan brings readers along for an illuminating (and a bit terrifying) ride packed with foresight, wit, and his trademark irreverence.]]> 512 Peter Zeihan 006323047X Josh 2 history-of-technology
I doubt the author is as confident/naive as his writing suggests making me wonder if this is all a cash grab (ie. "the apocalypse narrative sells well").

If readers are willing to ask the question "how else might this play out?" throughout, then the inventory of fragilities still makes it worth a very fast read...]]> 4.12 2022 The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization
author: Peter Zeihan
name: Josh
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2022/07/27
date added: 2022/07/27
shelves: history-of-technology
review:
The author raises a lot of great points on specific risks and specific areas of fragility but then makes equally fragile assumptions about how those risks will play out. The author then levers those brittle assumptions up to macroscopic behavior of the overall system.

I doubt the author is as confident/naive as his writing suggests making me wonder if this is all a cash grab (ie. "the apocalypse narrative sells well").

If readers are willing to ask the question "how else might this play out?" throughout, then the inventory of fragilities still makes it worth a very fast read...
]]> <![CDATA[Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms & a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories]]> 7001285 495 Simon Winchester 0061702587 Josh 4 history-of-technology 3.74 2010 Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms & a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories
author: Simon Winchester
name: Josh
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2021/07/05
date added: 2021/07/05
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Pacific: The Ocean of the Future]]> 25816988
As the Mediterranean shaped the classical world, and the Atlantic connected Europe to the New World, the Pacific Ocean defines our tomorrow. With China on the rise, so, too, are the American cities of the West coast, including Seattle, San Francisco, and the long cluster of towns down the Silicon Valley.

Today, the Pacific is ascendant. Its geological history has long transformed us—tremendous earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis—but its human history, from a Western perspective, is quite young, beginning with Magellan’s sixteenth-century circumnavigation. It is a natural wonder whose most fascinating history is currently being made.

In telling the story of the Pacific, Simon Winchester takes us from the Bering Strait to Cape Horn, the Yangtze River to the Panama Canal, and to the many small islands and archipelagos that lie in between. He observes the fall of a dictator in Manila, visits aboriginals in northern Queensland, and is jailed in Tierra del Fuego, the land at the end of the world. His journey encompasses a trip down the Alaska Highway, a stop at the isolated Pitcairn Islands, a trek across South Korea and a glimpse of its mysterious northern neighbor.

Winchester’s personal experience is vast and his storytelling second to none. And his historical understanding of the region is formidable, making Pacific a paean to this magnificent sea of beauty, myth, and imagination that is transforming our lives.]]> 512 Simon Winchester 0062315412 Josh 3 history-of-technology 4.04 2015 Pacific: The Ocean of the Future
author: Simon Winchester
name: Josh
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2021/05/22
date added: 2021/05/22
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose]]> 6828896 246 Tony Hsieh 0446563048 Josh 4 history-of-technology 4.02 2000 Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose
author: Tony Hsieh
name: Josh
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2021/03/21
date added: 2021/03/21
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution]]> 21856367
What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail?

In his masterly saga, Isaacson begins with Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron’s daughter, who pioneered computer programming in the 1840s. He explores the fascinating personalities that created our current digital revolution, such as Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, John von Neumann, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Robert Noyce, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, and Larry Page.

This is the story of how their minds worked and what made them so inventive. It’s also a narrative of how their ability to collaborate and master the art of teamwork made them even more creative.

For an era that seeks to foster innovation, creativity, and teamwork, The Innovators shows how they happen.]]> 542 Walter Isaacson 147670869X Josh 4 4.09 2011 The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution
author: Walter Isaacson
name: Josh
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2020/05/10
date added: 2020/05/24
shelves: history, history-of-technology, startups, investing, innovation
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market]]> 30194505 The incredible true story of the card-counting mathematics professor who taught the world how to beat the dealer and, as the first of the great quantitative investors, ushered in a revolution on Wall Street. A child of the Great Depression, legendary mathematician Edward O. Thorp invented card counting, proving the seemingly that you could beat the dealer at the blackjack table. As a result he launched a gambling renaissance. His remarkable success—and mathematically unassailable method—caused such an uproar that casinos altered the rules of the game to thwart him and the legions he inspired. They barred him from their premises, even put his life in jeopardy. Nonetheless, gambling was forever changed. Thereafter, Thorp shifted his sights to “the biggest casino in the world�: Wall Street. Devising and then deploying mathematical formulas to beat the market, Thorp ushered in the era of quantitative finance we live in today. Along the way, the so-called godfather of the quants played bridge with Warren Buffett, crossed swords with a young Rudy Giuliani, detected the Bernie Madoff scheme, and, to beat the game of roulette, invented, with Claude Shannon, the world’s first wearable computer. Here, for the first time, Thorp tells the story of what he did, how he did it, his passions and motivations, and the curiosity that has always driven him to disregard conventional wisdom and devise game-changing solutions to seemingly insoluble problems. An intellectual thrill ride, replete with practical wisdom that can guide us all in uncertain financial waters, A Man for All Markets is an instant classic—a book that challenges its readers to think logically about a seemingly irrational world.Praise for A Man for All Markets“In A Man for All Markets, [Thorp] delightfully recounts his progress (if that is the word) from college teacher to gambler to hedge-fund manager. Along the way we learn important lessons about the functioning of markets and the logic of investment.�—The Wall Street Journal “[Thorp] gives a biological summation (think Richard Feynman’s Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!) of his quest to prove the aphorism ‘the house always wins� is flawed. . . . Illuminating for the mathematically inclined, and cautionary for would-be gamblers and day traders�� Library Journal]]> 390 Edward O. Thorp 081299874X Josh 3 history-of-technology 4.30 2016 A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market
author: Edward O. Thorp
name: Josh
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2019/12/25
date added: 2020/04/24
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power]]> 13372977 Private Empire Steve Coll investigates the largest and most powerful private corporation in the United States, revealing the true extent of its power. ExxonMobil’s annual revenues are larger than the economic activity in the great majority of countries. In many of the countries where it conducts business, ExxonMobil’s sway over politics and security is greater than that of the United States embassy. In Washington, ExxonMobil spends more money lobbying Congress and the White House than almost any other corporation. Yet despite its outsized influence, it is a black box.

Private Empire pulls back the curtain, tracking the corporation’s recent history and its central role on the world stage, beginning with the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989 and leading to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The action spans the globe, moving from Moscow, to impoverished African capitals, Indonesia, and elsewhere in heart-stopping scenes that feature kidnapping cases, civil wars, and high-stakes struggles at the Kremlin. At home, Coll goes inside ExxonMobil’s K Street office and corporation headquarters in Irving, Texas, where top executives in the “God Pod� (as employees call it) oversee an extraordinary corporate culture of discipline and secrecy.

The narrative is driven by larger than life characters, including corporate legend Lee “Iron Ass� Raymond, ExxonMobil’s chief executive until 2005. A close friend of Dick Cheney’s, Raymond was both the most successful and effective oil executive of his era and an unabashed skeptic about climate change and government regulation.. This position proved difficult to maintain in the face of new science and political change and Raymond’s successor, current ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson, broke with Raymond’s programs in an effort to reset ExxonMobil’s public image. The larger cast includes countless world leaders, plutocrats, dictators, guerrillas, and corporate scientists who are part of ExxonMobil’s colossal story.

The first hard-hitting examination of ExxonMobil, Private Empire is the masterful result of Coll’s indefatigable reporting. He draws here on more than four hundred interviews; field reporting from the halls of Congress to the oil-laden swamps of the Niger Delta; more than one thousand pages of previously classified U.S. documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act; heretofore unexamined court records; and many other sources. A penetrating, newsbreaking study, Private Empire is a defining portrait of ExxonMobil and the place of Big Oil in American politics and foreign policy.

Winner of the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2012]]> 685 Steve Coll 1594203350 Josh 4 history-of-technology 3.98 2012 Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power
author: Steve Coll
name: Josh
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2020/02/26
date added: 2020/02/26
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike]]> 27220736
In 1962, fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed $50 from his father and created a company with a simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost athletic shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the trunk of his lime green Plymouth Valiant, Knight grossed $8,000 his first year. Today, Nike’s annual sales top $30 billion. In an age of startups, Nike is the ne plus ultra of all startups, and the swoosh has become a revolutionary, globe-spanning icon, one of the most ubiquitous and recognizable symbols in the world today.

But Knight, the man behind the swoosh, has always remained a mystery. Now, for the first time, in a memoir that is candid, humble, gutsy, and wry, he tells his story, beginning with his crossroads moment. At 24, after backpacking around the world, he decided to take the unconventional path, to start his own business—a business that would be dynamic, different.

Knight details the many risks and daunting setbacks that stood between him and his dream—along with his early triumphs. Above all, he recalls the formative relationships with his first partners and employees, a ragtag group of misfits and seekers who became a tight-knit band of brothers. Together, harnessing the transcendent power of a shared mission, and a deep belief in the spirit of sport, they built a brand that changed everything.]]> 400 Phil Knight 1501135910 Josh 4 history-of-technology 4.45 2016 Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike
author: Phil Knight
name: Josh
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2018/11/04
date added: 2018/11/04
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.]]> 16121 Born the son of a flamboyant, bigamous snake-oil salesman and a pious, straitlaced mother, Rockefeller rose from rustic origins to become the world's richest man by creating America's most powerful and feared monopoly, Standard Oil. Branded "the Octopus" by legions of muckrakers, the trust refined and marketed nearly 90 percent of the oil produced in America.
Rockefeller was likely the most controversial businessman in our nation's history. Critics charged that his empire was built on unscrupulous tactics: grand-scale collusion with the railroads, predatory pricing, industrial espionage, and wholesale bribery of political officials. The titan spent more than thirty years dodging investigations until Teddy Roosevelt and his trustbusters embarked on a marathon crusade to bring Standard Oil to bay.
While providing abundant new evidence of Rockefeller's misdeeds, Chernow discards the stereotype of the cold-blooded monster to sketch an unforgettably human portrait of a quirky, eccentric original. A devout Baptist and temperance advocate, Rockefeller gave money more generously--his chosen philanthropies included the Rockefeller Foundation, the University of Chicago, and what is today Rockefeller University--than anyone before him. Titan presents a finely nuanced portrait of a fascinating, complex man, synthesizing his public and private lives and disclosing numerous family scandals, tragedies, and misfortunes that have never before come to light.
John D. Rockefeller's story captures a pivotal moment in American history, documenting the dramatic post-Civil War shift from small business to the rise of giant corporations that irrevocably transformed the nation. With cameos by Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst, Jay Gould, William Vanderbilt, Ida Tarbell, Andrew Carnegie, Carl Jung, J. Pierpont Morgan, William James, Henry Clay Frick, Mark Twain, and Will Rogers, Titan turns Rockefeller's life into a vivid tapestry of American society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is Ron Chernow's signal triumph that he narrates this monumental saga with all the sweep, drama, and insight that this giant subject deserves.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 832 Ron Chernow 1400077303 Josh 4 history-of-technology 4.15 1998 Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
author: Ron Chernow
name: Josh
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at: 2018/06/30
date added: 2018/06/30
shelves: history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Benjamin Franklin: An American Life]]> 10883
He was, during his 84-year life, America's best scientist, inventor, diplomat, writer, and business strategist, and he was also one of its most practical—though not most profound—political thinkers. He proved by flying a kite that lightning was electricity, and he invented a rod to tame it. He sought practical ways to make stoves less smoky and commonwealths less corrupt. He organized neighborhood constabularies and international alliances, local lending libraries and national legislatures. He combined two types of lenses to create bifocals and two concepts of representation to foster the nation's federal compromise. He was the only man who shaped all the founding documents of America: the Albany Plan of Union, the Declaration of Independence, the treaty of alliance with France, the peace treaty with England, and the Constitution. And he helped invent America's unique style of homespun humor, democratic values, and philosophical pragmatism.

But the most interesting thing that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself. America's first great publicist, he was, in his life and in his writings, consciously trying to create a new American archetype. In the process, he carefully crafted his own persona, portrayed it in public, and polished it for posterity.

Through it all, he trusted the hearts and minds of his fellow "leather-aprons" more than he did those of any inbred elite. He saw middle-class values as a source of social strength, not as something to be derided. His guiding principle was a "dislike of everything that tended to debase the spirit of the common people." Few of his fellow founders felt this comfort with democracy so fully, and none so intuitively.

In this colorful and intimate narrative, Isaacson provides the full sweep of Franklin's amazing life, from his days as a runaway printer to his triumphs as a statesman, scientist, and Founding Father. He chronicles Franklin's tumultuous relationship with his illegitimate son and grandson, his practical marriage, and his flirtations with the ladies of Paris. He also shows how Franklin helped to create the American character and why he has a particular resonance in the twenty-first century.]]> 586 Walter Isaacson 074325807X Josh 4 4.04 2003 Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
author: Walter Isaacson
name: Josh
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2016/05/25
date added: 2018/01/26
shelves: biography, american-history, self, leadership, to-buy, history-of-technology
review:

]]> The Making of the Atomic Bomb 16884
Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly -- or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear energy to the bright glare of Trinity there was a span of hardly more than twenty-five years. What began as merely an interesting speculative problem in physics grew into the Manhattan Project, and then into the Bomb with frightening rapidity, while scientists known only to their peers -- Szilard, Teller, Oppenheimer, Bohr, Meitner, Fermi, Lawrence, and yon Neumann -- stepped from their ivory towers into the limelight.

Richard Rhodes takes us on that journey step by step, minute by minute, and gives us the definitive story of man's most awesome discovery and invention.]]> 886 Richard Rhodes 0684813785 Josh 5 4.38 1986 The Making of the Atomic Bomb
author: Richard Rhodes
name: Josh
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1986
rating: 5
read at: 2017/01/30
date added: 2018/01/26
shelves: history, history-of-science, american-history, leadership, favorites, to-buy, history-of-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Capital in the Twenty First Century]]> 18736925 Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings will transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality.

Piketty shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality—the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth—today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, Piketty says, and may do so again.]]> 685 Thomas Piketty 067443000X Josh 4 4.04 2013 Capital in the Twenty First Century
author: Thomas Piketty
name: Josh
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2015/03/30
date added: 2018/01/26
shelves: economic-history, economics, long-view, to-buy, history-of-technology
review:

]]> Jack: Straight from the Gut 5559 496 Jack Welch 5559608475 Josh 4 3.82 2001 Jack: Straight from the Gut
author: Jack Welch
name: Josh
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 2013/08/06
date added: 2018/01/26
shelves: biography, leadership, to-buy, history-of-technology
review:

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