"Soul of a new machine" by Tracy Kidder.
I recommend this book every time someone asks for recommendations about computer company history. This book is one of my all-time favorites.
Ask HN: Recommendations on books and documentaries on tech companies/people?
71–80 of 118 posts
Re: Ask HN: Recommendations on books and documentaries on tech companies/people?
#72So 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."
Re: Ask HN: Recommendations on books and documentaries on tech companies/people?
#73The 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.
If you're searching for this book try: "Innovators by Walter Isaacson".
Re: Ask HN: Recommendations on books and documentaries on tech companies/people?
#74I'm currently reading The Secret History of Mac Gaming
by Richard Moss. It tells the story of the developers for the early Apple Macintosh.
Re: Ask HN: Recommendations on books and documentaries on tech companies/people?
#75You 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/...
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.
Re: Ask HN: Recommendations on books and documentaries on tech companies/people?
#76"Soul of a new machine" by Tracy Kidder.
I was going to add this one myself. I've read it multiple times over the years since it was published and it still touches the engineer in me. Great, great book.
Re: Ask HN: Recommendations on books and documentaries on tech companies/people?
#77Maybe 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…
I just finished Bad Blood. It's slightly disjoint, but the anecdotes just made my jaw hang open. Well worth reading I think.
Would you kindly provide samples of those anecdotes?
Re: Ask HN: Recommendations on books and documentaries on tech companies/people?
#78"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.
Re: Ask HN: Recommendations on books and documentaries on tech companies/people?
#79"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.
Re: Ask HN: Recommendations on books and documentaries on tech companies/people?
#80Bill & 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.