
Ask HN: Recommendations on books and documentaries on tech companies/people? - __exit__
There exist lots of material about trending companies such as Amazon, Facebook, Apple and the people behind them such as Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, etc...<p>But what about companies such as Sun Microsystems, Netscape, Intel, Red Hat...and people involved in tech such as Tim Berners-Lee, Marissa Mayer, Brian Kernighan...?<p>For instance, I read the &quot;iWoz&quot; book by Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, and loved it because he describes lots of technical challenges he faced, as well as what problems had Apple back at the time. Lots of fun facts, anecdotes and info, mainly from a technical perspective.<p>Another nice book was &quot;Just For Fun&quot;, by Linus Torvalds. It provided a human perspective on Linus, who is usually depicted as a tyrant. In addition he describes the initial development of the Linux Kernel as well as the whys behind it, a nice introspection for those who are into programming.<p>Those are the kinds stories I&#x27;d like to read, material about tech companies: how they got created, what struggles did they have to face, the people that founded them and developed them.<p>Do you have any recommendations in the form of books, documentaries, blog posts or other sorts of material?<p>Thank in advance!
======
rpeden
You might enjoy Steven Levy's _Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution_
[1]. It's not too focused on specific people or companies, although you'll
encounter some well known people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Richard
Stallman in the book. It's an interesting read because it gives you a great
background that helps you understand how we ended up with the tech culture and
environment we have today.

In the reply to another comment, I also mentioned _Coders at Work_ [2]. I
found that it provided some great insight into the early days of some
fascinating companies from a technical perspective.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Computer-Revolution-Steven-
Le...](https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Computer-Revolution-Steven-
Levy/dp/1449388396) [2] [https://www.amazon.com/Coders-Work-Reflections-Craft-
Program...](https://www.amazon.com/Coders-Work-Reflections-Craft-
Programming/dp/1430219483)

------
pmulv
I'm currently in the process of reading "Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and
the Dawn of the Computer Age,"[0] and I highly recommend it. I've always
viewed Xerox as primarily an office printer company, and the fact that they
innovated/invented many of the systems that we still use today (ethernet,
layered windows on an operating system, the mouse, bitmap displays) and then
failed to market these technologies, makes for a really interesting read.

[0] - [https://www.amazon.com/Dealers-Lightning-Xerox-PARC-
Computer...](https://www.amazon.com/Dealers-Lightning-Xerox-PARC-
Computer/dp/0887309895)

~~~
kar1181
Agreed, it's one of my favourite books of all time.

------
mr-ron
The Innovaters by Walter Issacson. It's literally about 20 biographies in one
book, documenting the internet creation, and the computer, which meet in the
middle in the 80s and 90s.

I can't recommended it enough of you are looking for stories of people and
companies to how we got to where we are today.

~~~
inetsee
If you're searching for this book try: "Innovators by Walter Isaacson".

~~~
pomber
No kindle version?

~~~
inetsee
Sorry it took me so long to reply. Amazon does list a Kindle version as being
available.

------
linuxlizard
_Showstopper_ One of the best tech books, after _Soul of a New Machine_
(recommended in the comments, too). Covers Microsoft's creation of Windows NT.

_DEC is Dead. Long Live DEC_ about the rise and fall of Digital Equipment
Corporation.

_Skunkworks_ Lockheed-Martin's creation of the SR-71.

_Moneyball_ using math to build a top flight US baseball team.

Broadening the category a bit:

_The Smartest Guys in the Room_ is about Enron's collapse. Not directly
related to computer tech but definitely tech and people.

_Billion Dollar Lessons_ covers several spectacular company failures. Again,
not strictly tech related but amazing stories of crash & burn. Includes (IIRC)
Iridium, Kodak, IBM.

~~~
kevas
Based on your listings, you may also enjoy When Genius Failed, which is based
on LTCM and their downfall.

Link:
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/0375758259/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_j0...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0375758259/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_j0xeBb89BDX4H)

~~~
linuxlizard
Did read _When Genius Failed_. Is indeed a great read.

------
emodendroket
Maybe a bit more of a downer than you have in mind, but I read Surveillance
Valley by Yasha Levine and I thought parts were interesting, especially the
discussion of the links between TOR and US intelligence.

Seibel's Coders at Work is really fascinating and it's great to get all these
different perspectives, some of them really tearing down current orthodoxy
(like the interview about how nobody really reads code or jwz making fun of
software blogs).

Free as in Freedom, about Richard Stallman, was also a book I enjoyed reading
a lot, although I understand the subject hated it (it's been a while, but I
recall it being a pretty sympathetic portrait, but unflattering in parts).

I'm interested to know if anybody read the Carreyou book about Theranos. It
sounds like it could be good.

~~~
pinewurst
I just finished Bad Blood. It's slightly disjoint, but the anecdotes just made
my jaw hang open. Well worth reading I think.

~~~
godelmachine
Would you kindly provide samples of those anecdotes?

~~~
pinewurst
Sorry, I had it from my local library and it's now returned. I'm specifically
thinking of the stories about Theranos work culture if anyone else would like
to chime in.

------
pomber
Masters of Doom. Great book about John Carmack and id software.

~~~
unmole
I bought it after seeing it being recommend several times on HN. Personally, I
found it rather disappointing. Sure, there are brilliant parts, but on the
whole, it was a chore to finish.

~~~
n_t
I agree. While initial struggling days were interesting but later I had to
push myself to finish the book.

------
Liquix
_What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal
Computer Industry_ is exactly what you're looking for. It goes way back to
before Xerox or Apple, getting up close and personal with the visionaries who
dreamt that computers would one day augment human intellect, especially Doug
Engelbart. I wish I was better at summarizing books - this is really really
worth reading

[https://www.amazon.com/What-Dormouse-Said-Counterculture-
Per...](https://www.amazon.com/What-Dormouse-Said-Counterculture-
Personal/dp/0143036769)

------
Hates_
"Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days" is a good collection of
stories: [https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-
Early/...](https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-
Early/dp/1430210788)

~~~
rpeden
Peter Seibel's _Coders and Work_ also provides an interesting perspective. As
the title implies, it focuses more on developers than founders...although in
some cases, the developer being interviewed was also a startup founder.

Some of the interviews give an interesting look at the early days of some
companies, too. I found jwz's interview provided some good insight into the
early days of Netscape, as well as the reasons why the company started to go
downhill.

~~~
walterbell
Susan Lammer’s 1986 _Programmers at Work_ is available online:

[https://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/2008/01/11/all-
right...](https://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/2008/01/11/all-rights-
reserved-copyright-susan-lammers-2008/)

------
goda90
For a college "ethics in computers" course, our professor had us watch
"Triumph of the Nerds" by Robert Cringely. It's from 1996, so not the most
recent history, but it was still an interesting watch. There was another
documentary about the dot-com bubble we watched, but I can't recall the name.
Overall a very interesting class because the professor had a lot of industry
experience and watched companies rise and fall.

~~~
eigenman
I would also strongly recommend "Triumph of the Nerds." I think it is
invaluable because it gives an inside perspective on the tech industry using
interviews of people who were actually leading the change: Steve Jobs, Steve
Wozniak, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Larry Ellison, Dan Bricklin (of VisiCalc,
the first spreadsheet), etc.

------
jka
"Code Rush" is a film documentary (now public domain) covering Netscape's
engineering team around the time they were open sourcing Mozilla.

It provides a nice view into engineering practices and valley/start-up culture
at the time - a lot has changed and a lot has stayed the same.

[https://archive.org/details/CodeRush](https://archive.org/details/CodeRush)

------
timdellinger
"Easy to Learn, Hard to Master: The Fate of Atari", now streaming on Amazon
Prime.

An interesting founder, a few false starts, business-minded people who
successfully take things to the next level but don't understand the need to
continuously make your own products obsolete, and the eventual fall as
technology marches on.

Interviews with the main players, including talking about their mistakes and
flaws.

------
chubot
\- Paypal Wars. I read this twice -- once back in 2006 or so, before I really
knew who any of the people were (Thiel, Musk, etc.). And then once a few years
ago.

\- Chaos Monkeys -- about Facebook circa 2010, touches on YC a few years
before that. Somewhat controversial, but a good book.

\- Weaving the Web by Tim Berners-Lee -- talks about the story from CERN to
MIT, etc.

Echoing some other posts:

\- The Idea Factory

\- The Dream Machine (probably the densest and most informative computer
history book I've read)

\- Masters of Doom

\- The Supermen (about Seymour Cray) -- I didn't know anything about this side
of the industry! Interesting.

------
jordanab
\- "Startupland: How Three Guys Risked Everything to Turn an Idea into a
Global Business"

I just finished this, and really enjoyed it. It's about the founding of
Zendesk. I personally liked it's perspective because it's founders were 30
somethings (instead of the usual out of college types), and they are from
Europe.

I also really enjoyed:

\- "Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal"

\- "The Airbnb Story: How Three Ordinary Guys Disrupted an Industry, Made
Billions and Created Plenty of Controversy"

------
i_don_t_know
"Soul of a new machine" by Tracy Kidder.

~~~
kken
This. Also

"Spinoff" by Charlie Sporck - early Silicon Valley history on Semi companies

"Commodore - a company on the edge" by Brian Bagnall

"Only the paranoid survive" by Andy Grove - Intels switch to Microprocessors.
(Interestingly you can see in the book that he realized the power of the
internet, but failed to act on it to some extend)

------
smussell
There’s a ton of great suggestions here. Here are a couple I haven’t seen
mentioned.

Documentaries:

\- Silicon Cowboys -
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4938484/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4938484/)
It covers the creation of Compaq

\- American Experience: Silicon Velley -
[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/silicon/](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/silicon/)
About how Silicon Valley came to be.

\- Naughty Dog 30th Anniversary -
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cdr7THH0zo8](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cdr7THH0zo8)
Kind of a PR video, but interesting and free. Covers the history of Naughty
Dog games.

Books:

\- Cukoo’s Egg - [https://www.amazon.com/Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Computer-
Espiona...](https://www.amazon.com/Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Computer-
Espionage/dp/1416507787) Has some interesting technical detail, and gives
perspective on a very different time on the internet.

\- Revolution in the Valley - [https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Valley-
Insanely-Great-Stor...](https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Valley-Insanely-
Great-Story/dp/1449316247) You can read these stories on folklore.org, but I
enjoyed the collected book. Covers the creation of the Macintosh.

------
eternalban
Computer History Museum's collection [1] is fantastic. Specially recommend the
Oral Histories [2]. Quite a lot of the greats are there. For example, Andy
Bechtolsheim of Sun Microsystems [3], John Backus [4], Charles Hoare [5], Bill
Joy [6], SPARC [7], ...

[1]: [http://www.computerhistory.org/](http://www.computerhistory.org/)

[2]:
[http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/oralhistories/](http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/oralhistories/)

[3]:
[http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102737929](http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102737929)

[4]:
[http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102657954](http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102657954)

[5]:
[http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102658017](http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102658017)

[6]:
[http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102739973](http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102739973)

[7]:
[http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102745979](http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102745979)

------
whitingx
Recommendations in this area;

Books

'The Making of Karateka' by Jordan Mechner
[http://amzn.eu/5iUrxxo](http://amzn.eu/5iUrxxo)

'The Making of Prince of Persia' by Jordan Mechner
[http://amzn.eu/fJ0Nfr2](http://amzn.eu/fJ0Nfr2)

Documentaries

'From Bedrooms to Billions' [http://www.frombedroomstobillions.com/about-the-
film](http://www.frombedroomstobillions.com/about-the-film)
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2404567/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2404567/)

'From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years!'
[http://www.frombedroomstobillions.com/amiga](http://www.frombedroomstobillions.com/amiga)
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4603210/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4603210/)

Blog Posts

[https://arstechnica.com/series/history-of-the-
amiga/](https://arstechnica.com/series/history-of-the-amiga/)

Hope ^ these prove interesting, will update comment if I think of others ツ

------
pjmorris
Not software books, but 'Apollo: Race to the Moon' by Murray and Cox, and 'The
Making of The Atomic Bomb', Rhodes are my two favorite books about engineering
projects and the people behind them.

~~~
timdellinger
Having read waaaay too many books about the development of the atomic bomb, I
have to say that my favorite is _Lawrence and Oppenheimer_ by Davis. It tells
the story of two strong willed scientists, the competing methods that they
were pushing for isotope separation, and how the intersection of personality,
science & engineering, and the political/bureaucratic jockeying that's part of
any large project played out.

------
n_t
The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray and the Technical Wizards Behind the
Supercomputer. I found it interesting read but then could be as I was in
supercomputing area and could relate to lot of things.

------
kej
As a sort of counterpoint to the suggestions you're going to get, I really
like the series _Connections_ [1] by science historian James Burke. He takes a
step back to show how interconnected and interdependent technological progress
is. I think it's a valuable perspective that is easy to ignore when you're
focused on the stories of individual companies or inventors. The first series
is available on the Internet Archive [2], as well.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_\(TV_series\))

[2]
[https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22connection...](https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22connections%22%20creator%3A%22james%20burke%22)

------
hunterjrj
For Red Hat, you can check out "The Open Organization" which details the
culture that Red Hat espouses:

[https://www.redhat.com/en/explore/the-open-organization-
book](https://www.redhat.com/en/explore/the-open-organization-book)

------
lsaac
You might enjoy "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic
Future"[0]

[0] - [https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-
Future/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-
Future/dp/0062301233)

~~~
sizzzzlerz
A related book is "The Space Barons" by Christian Davenport. Along with Musk,
it dives into the other private space companies put together by two other
uber-wealthy massive egos, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson.

Great line: How do you make millions in rockets? Start with a billion.

------
arethuza
Not software/hardware technology, but "The Silent Deep - The Royal Navy
Submarine Service Since 1945" has some remarkable accounts of Admiral Hyman G.
Rickover who was quite a character - extremely effective but also quite
remarkably rude and intimidating.

Note: What a US Navy Admiral is doing in a book about the Royal Navy is one of
the things that makes the book fascinating.

Here is an account of Jimmy Carter's interview with Rickover when he was a
young naval officer:

[https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/07/09/Carter-extolls-
old-N...](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/07/09/Carter-extolls-old-Navy-
boss-Rickover/3885521265600/)

------
santix
"The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation" by Jon
Gertner.

~~~
sizzzzlerz
Its a very good book. Today, one might question a company investing so much
money into pure research but Bell Labs produced 8 Nobel Laureates, tens of
thousands of patents, who knows how many papers, PhDs, not to mention
inventions that directly benefited Bell's primary business in telephones. Some
of those papers, Claude Shannon's, for instance, on information theory, are
responsible for the creation of entire industries.

------
cvaidya1986
Couple of top selling books on Facebook , one one Snapchat ( look up on amazon
) , Mastery by Robert Greene and How I Built This podcast by Guy Raz. Enough
material to know how to build ten unicorns.

------
altharaz
There is an excellent book about that: "Bienvenue dans le nouveau monde :
comment j'ai survécu à la coolitude des startups" from Mathilde Ramadier.

It's an analysis of the startups world, with its downside.

This book is not yet in English, but here is a summary: [http://www.startup-
book.com/2017/05/02/how-i-survived-the-co...](http://www.startup-
book.com/2017/05/02/how-i-survived-the-coolitude-of-startups-by-mathilde-
ramadier/)

------
sizzzzlerz
"Kelly: More than My Share of it All" \- Clarence "Kelly" Johnson : A personal
narrative of the world's greatest aircraft designer

"The Mythical Man-Month" \- Fred Brooks : A classic book of software
engineering but it is so much more. If you have aspirations of becoming an
effective manager, you need this book.

"Flight: My Life in Mission Control" \- Chris Kraft : A book about the early
space program written by the man who literally wrote the book on how spaces
missions were to be conducted.

------
nimeshneema
_Masterminds of Programming: Conversations with the Creators of Major
Programming Languages_ \- features exclusive interviews with the creators of
several historic and highly influential programming languages. In this unique
collection, you'll learn about the processes that led to specific design
decisions, including the goals they had in mind, the trade-offs they had to
make, and how their experiences have left an impact on programming today.

------
fsloth
'The Dream Machine: J. C. R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing
Personal' by M. Mitchell Waldrop was an amazing historical vertical slice from
the beginnings of computation, through various military industrial escapades,
through the ultimate demo to finally to Xeroc Parc.

It answers the question "where did the personal computer come from" and the
answer is not some garage in silicon valley, but is far more interesting and
complex.

------
ldjb
_Free as in Freedom_ by Sam Williams is quite an interesting book about
Richard Stallman and the origins of the free software movement.

A version revised by Stallman himself is available under the GFDL:

[https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmcGNKQQKnywV4mtAsUFmi9xaYthkoBucwAKGo7...](https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmcGNKQQKnywV4mtAsUFmi9xaYthkoBucwAKGo7W5CGRVb/free-
as-in-freedom-v2.pdf)

------
olavgg
Commodore a company on the edge! Great book about the individuals involved in
management and engineering creating the famous 6502 microprocessor and how
they built a best selling computer company world wide. Why they struggled in
the US, but dominated in Europe. That book should be converted to a short tv-
series. Jack Tramiel would be an awesome character, brutal and kind!

~~~
jasode
_> That book should be converted to a short tv-series_

As a substitute, there's a long documentary that has interviews with Jack
Tramiel and a bunch of ex-Commodore engineers:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvuacnjvZy4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvuacnjvZy4)

------
atlasM
It's not necessarily tech-related, but State of Play[0]. It's a documentary
about Korean StarCraft players/teams and what it was like to be in the scene
right after the peak of its popularity. It's easily one of my favorites.

[0] - [http://watch.stateofplaydoc.com/](http://watch.stateofplaydoc.com/)

------
blakesterz
So it's not exactly what you asked for (Fiction) but you might want to check
out Microserfs, by Douglas Coupland. Also, Jpod from Coupland, it's along the
same lines. Quoting wikipedia: "Set in the early 1990s, it captures the state
of the technology industry before Windows 95, and anticipates the dot-com
bubble of the late 1990s."

------
tw1010
And while we're on the topic, are there any books written about this by people
from a background in the humanities, like sociology or anthropology or
history? It'd be interesting to read a take on our world from the perspective
of someone with a different, yet nonetheless no less powerful and insightful,
conceptual toolkit.

~~~
pjmorris
Sherry Turkle is an MIT sociologist. She has written several books about the
culture of technology. I haven't read them, so I won't give recommendations.

------
sizzzzlerz
Bill & Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the World's Greatest Company -
Michael Malone : One of the first Silicon Valley start-ups which grew to
incomparable heights through the management style of its two founders.
Unfortunately, the lessons they taught are being ignored in today's Quick Buck
environment.

~~~
stagger87
I would alternatively suggest "The HP way, How Bill Hewlett and I build our
company" by David Packard.

------
jeremysalmon
Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video
Games Are Made : [https://www.amazon.fr/Blood-Sweat-Pixels-Triumphant-
Turbulen...](https://www.amazon.fr/Blood-Sweat-Pixels-Triumphant-
Turbulent/dp/0062651234)

------
indescions_2018
Now this is a great list ;)

I'll just add:

Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet

Against The Gods: The Remarkable Story Of Risk

------
timdellinger
_American Steel_ by Richard Preston is under-appreciated. A market opportunity
is identified, and a so-crazy-that-it-just-might-work design for a new type of
steel mill is pursued by crazy maverick cowboys. The true story of Nucor
Steel.

------
nimeshneema
_Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer_ \- This is the story
of the computer pioneers and the industry they founded. It reveals the visions
they shared, the sacrifices they made, and the rewards they reaped.

------
snowwrestler
I greatly enjoyed "Barbarians Led by Bill Gates," which was written by an
early Microsoft employee and contains a bunch of great stories about the tech
and business of Microsoft.

Another one is "Dreaming in Code," which details the efforts of Mitch Kapor to
create a team to build a flexible productivity app he had always dreamed of.
It's a cautionary tale since the project ultimately fails.

"Crypto", by Steven Levy, details the invention of public key cryptography and
the first round of the "crypto wars" about whether the federal government
would require a backdoor.

------
peterkelly
"Almost Perfect" by W. E. Peterson, the story of the rise and fall of
WordPerfect Corporation

[http://www.wordplace.com/ap/](http://www.wordplace.com/ap/)

------
jlevers
I just read and really enjoyed A Truck Full of Money by Tracy Kidder. It's
about Paul English (founder of Kayak), both his life in general and his
entrepreneurial adventures. I highly recommend it!

------
malexw
The Pixar Touch describes the creation of the company and first few films that
Pixar made. I especially enjoyed it because of my interest in computer
graphics, but it's probably a worthwhile read for most tech folks.

Creativity, Inc., is another book about Pixar that's been recommended to me,
though it was recommended as a way to learn about what successful management
at a tech company looks like. I haven't read it though, so I can't vouch for
the quality.

------
krylon
I can recommend "I Sing the Body Electronic: A Year with Microsoft on the
Multimedia Frontier" by Fred Moody. It is pretty old, and I think it's been
out of print for a while, but if you can get your hands on a copy, it is well
worth the effort.

It details the work of a team working on a children's encyclopedia, but it
also gives some very interesting insights into Microsoft's corporate culture
(of the early 1990s at least) and social dynamics.

------
jcfrei
I'm currently reading The Secret History of Mac Gaming by Richard Moss. It
tells the story of the developers for the early Apple Macintosh.

------
wdr1
I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I enjoyed _Masters of Doom_.

 _Barbarians Led by Bill Gates_ is an older book, but interesting to get a
sense of MS was like in earlier times.

Isaacson's _Steve Jobs_ is obviously focused on Job, but gives a good sense of
the companies he ran while he was there.

 _Revolution in The Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made_
is a good view into the Mac specifically.

------
voxadam
'The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz'

[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3268458/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3268458/)

[https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/internet-own-boy-story-
aaron...](https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/internet-own-boy-story-aaron-
swartz/)

------
crispyambulance
Tim Ferriss is insufferable, but he has become a remarkable interviewer. The
latest Tim Ferriss podcast is with Steve Jurvetson (IMHO, the most interesting
tech VC today).

[https://tim.blog/2018/05/31/steve-
jurvetson/](https://tim.blog/2018/05/31/steve-jurvetson/)

------
pjmorris
'Gates', Stephen Manes. It's a biography of Bill Gates, but you see a good
deal of how Microsoft came to be.

------
startupfreak
The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created
the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson.

The list of people covered starts at Ada Lovelace and covers Vannevar Bush,
Alan Turing, John von Neumann, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Robert Noyce,
Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Tim Berners-Lee and a bunch more

------
nimeshneema
_Accidental Empires_ \- Accidental Empires is the trenchant, vastly readable
history of the computer industry, focusing as much on the astoundingly odd
personalities at its core--Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mitch Kapor, etc. and the
hacker culture they spawned as it does on the remarkable technology they
created.

------
djbelieny
Not necessarily company or people but I'd like to recommend "Startup Nation"
by Dan Senor & Saul Singer. Very interesting chronicle of Israel's economic
boom and it touches on interesting history of several tech companies which
either relocates, created branches or were created in Israel.

------
nimeshneema
_Fearless Genius: The Digital Revolution in Silicon Valley 1985-2000_ \- A
stunning visual history of the Silicon Valley technology boom, which
highlights key moments in the careers of Steve Jobs and more than seventy
other leading innovators as they created today’s digital world.

------
romanovcode
I've really enjoyed "Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble".

It's more about people/companies but it still fits, also it's super funny,
especially if you've been working in this kind of environment and can relate
to a lot of things said in the book.

------
timdellinger
I'll be the voice of dissent regarding _The Soul of a New Machine_ and also
_More Than My Share of It All_.

Yes, _Soul_ won the Pulitzer prize, but it was published in 1981, and I found
it very dated, and hard to slog through at times. I know it'll never happen,
but I'd love to see a re-write, or a heavily edited edition that's more
approachable for a modern reader.

I also found _More Than My Share_ to be a little disappointing. There were
some fun things in there, but overall the there was too much of an emphasis on
the tedious details of his life, not enough detail about the technical and
managerial challenges / accomplishments, and then (unfortunately disjointedly)
a few project management guidelines and some technology forecasting were
tacked on at the very end. I can't help but think that he had more anecdotes
and technical adventure stories in him which would have made for a much more
compelling, enlightening, and readable book.

~~~
minhaz23
Why not recommend some alternatives?

~~~
timdellinger
I'm putting those in separate threads to be upvoted if people like them so
that they might rise to the top on their own merits. I'm adding them as I
peruse my bookshelf.

~~~
minhaz23
Any update on that?

------
crtasm
I found the documentary on Josh Harris and the first internet television
network fascinating

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Live_in_Public](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Live_in_Public)

------
contingencies
_iWoz_ @
[https://archive.org/details/arguiot_Iwoz](https://archive.org/details/arguiot_Iwoz)
(note to others: use asterisks not underscores to _italicize_ )

------
czardoz
"Pirates of the Silicon Valley" and "In the realm of the Hackers"

~~~
goda90
Just a note that Pirates of the Silicon Valley is a docudrama, so maybe not
100% accurate, but still a great watch.

------
haldean
A little different from what others are recommending, in that it wasn't made
by a tech insider, but Werner Herzog's "Lo and Behold" is an excellent
nonlinear and eclectic documentary about the internet

------
timdellinger
_Crystal Fire: the Invention of the Transistor and the Birth of the
Information Age_ by Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson is a good history of
the transistor, mostly focusing on Bardeen, Shockley, and Brittain.

------
w126
"The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story" by Michael Lewis. Written not long
before the peak of the dot-com bubble, tells the story of James H. Clark, the
founder of SGI, Netscape and other companies.

------
fyskij
Recommended documentary: Revolution OS -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_OS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_OS)

------
maxxxxx
The Omega Tau podcast has quite a few in-depth tech related episodes.

------
MrL567
Chaos Monkeys by Antonio García Martínez is a good read. Good reminder that
tech is not all sunshine and roses and that a lot of cloak and dagger goes
behind the scenes in the valley.

------
hkmurakami
"Andy Grove"

"The Intel Trinity"

"Netscape Time"

"Valley Boy"

Brian Kernighan is a CS professor at Princeton and quite a personable guy. I'd
imagine that he has some talks about his work and past up online.

------
sateesh
_Hatching Twitter_ provides inside story behind creation of Twitter. The
fights between the founders and their machinations to control the company
makes an intriguing read.

------
pjmorris
'Programmers At Work', Susan Lammers. It's more about the individuals than the
companies they create, but the insights are (still) valuable.

------
g_bellard
The Innovaters by Walter Issacson, a must have.

~~~
godelmachine
I will recommend The Innovators a 1000 times

------
pjmorris
'Microsoft Secrets', Cusumano, Selby. A fairly detailed examination of how
Microsoft ran in the mid-90's.

------
seibelj
e-dreams is a documentary about Kozmo during the dotcom boom. Pretty good
assessment of not only that company but the mentality of that bubble.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Dreams](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Dreams)

------
gregcrv
“RiP!: A Remix Manifesto“ by Brett Gaylor

About relationship between intellectual property and hackers

------
mindcrime
Maybe not perfect matches, but a few titles I'm familiar with that you might
like:

 _Dreaming in Code_ \- covers Mitch Kapor's post Lotus effort to build
Chandler.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreaming_in_Code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreaming_in_Code)

 _Everyone Else Must Fail_ \- all about Larry Ellison and Oracle

[https://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Else-Must-Fail-
Unvarnished/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Else-Must-Fail-
Unvarnished/dp/0712621482)

 _Winners, Losers & Microsoft_ \- title says it all

[https://www.amazon.com/Winners-Losers-Microsoft-
Competition-...](https://www.amazon.com/Winners-Losers-Microsoft-Competition-
Technology/dp/0945999844)

Two books by Bill Gates:

 _Business At The Speed of Thought_

[https://www.amazon.com/Business-Speed-Thought-Succeeding-
Dig...](https://www.amazon.com/Business-Speed-Thought-Succeeding-
Digital/dp/0446525685/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1527861952&sr=1-1&keywords=business+at+the+speed+of+thought)

and

 _The Road Ahead_

[https://www.amazon.com/Road-Ahead-Completely-Up-
Date/dp/0140...](https://www.amazon.com/Road-Ahead-Completely-Up-
Date/dp/0140260404/ref=pd_sbs_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0140260404&pd_rd_r=ZRRXQ50NEK3EPWVC9FM9&pd_rd_w=q6Fr8&pd_rd_wg=iFPgv&psc=1&refRID=ZRRXQ50NEK3EPWVC9FM9)

Also:

 _MCI: Failure Is Not An Option_

[https://www.amazon.com/MCI-Failure-Invented-Competition-
Tele...](https://www.amazon.com/MCI-Failure-Invented-Competition-
Telecommunications/dp/1888232412/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1527861809&sr=1-1&keywords=failure+is+not+an+option+mci)

Already mentioned, but I feel obligated to add another +1 for these three:

 _The Soul of a New Machine_ \- Kidder

 _Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution_ \- Levy

 _The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation_ \-
Gertner

Also, if you enjoy this kind of stuff, you might enjoy the AMC series _Halt
and Catch Fire_. Yes it's fiction and highly dramatized, but it captures a lot
of the spirit of the times from the beginnings of the PC era up through the
Dot Com Bubble era.

------
s73v3r_
So, not necessarily inspirational, and some kinda gross things came out about
the author recently, but _Disrupted_ by Dan Lyons was pretty good. It's about
his time at HubSpot, which kinda seems like it was almost a parody of startup
culture and drinking the Kool-Aid. He later went on to be a writer on Silicon
Valley for seasons 2 & 3, and says he would pitch some things that actually
happened, and get shot down because they were "too out there and
unbelievable".

~~~
Davertron
Could you elaborate on the "gross things"? I read Disrupted and thought it was
pretty funny/interesting and I've watched a few of Dan's talks and enjoyed
them. A quick Google search didn't turn up anything about him recently though.

I did sort of wonder how accurate some of this stories were about HubSpot,
since you're only hearing his side of the story and the more sensational the
stories the better the book...

------
sudouser
Project X - Nissin Cup Noodle

------
dominotw
Silicon Valley on HBO is a good 'documentary' :D.

