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Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things

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Re: Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things

#31

Post by lnwlebjel »

teleforce wrote: post #13

Richard Hamming's book on AT&T Bell Labs R&D culture in inventing and solving many of the important problems [1]. Another is Where Wizards Stay Up Late by Katie Hafner on the early days of the Internet [2]. [1] The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: https://press.stripe.com/the-art-of-doing-science-and-engine... [2] Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet: https://katiehafner.com/books-new/where-wi…

The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation by Jon Gertner is similarly great for some of the earlier/origin stories of Bell Labs.

Re: Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things

#33

Post by fiftyacorn »

digikata wrote: post #28
rednafi wrote: post #7

“South: The Story of Shackleton’s Last Expedition, 1914–1917” by Sir Ernest Shackleton. Here, Shackleton documents the journey of the Endurance expedition, which aimed to traverse Antarctica but instead became a legendary tale of survival after the ship was trapped and destroyed by pack ice.

Related and also a good read is "The Roald Amundsen Diaries : The South Pole Expedition 1910-1912". You can see the ship he used on the expedition, the Fram at the appropriately named, Fram Museum in Oslo. It's an incredible experience to see and contemplate the expeditions these explorers mounted, and what equipment and resources they assembled to do it at a very early time. https://www.abebooks.com/products/isbn/97…

I didnt realise the ship was in a museum - Dundee has the discovery museum for Scotts ship which is good for a visit too

Re: Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things

#34

Post by sien »

shivaraj1996 wrote: post #20

"Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX" by Eric Berger documents how SpaceX employees poured their blood, sweat, and tears into launching a cost-effective rocket at a time when legacy operators dominated the space market with their costly cost-plus-fee contracts. This book mostly follows the journey of employees and (thankfully) doesn't resolve to Elon praise too much. There is a contin…

I've just read both and highly recommend them and was coming in to this thread to do so.

Liftoff : https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/53402132-liftoff

Re-entry : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/205309521-reentry

Both have very high ratings on Goodreads.

Re: Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things

#35

Post by peterldowns »

I read these three books last year and I believe that each would be interesting to you:

Undaunted Courage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undaunted_Courage

This is about doing something extremely hard with a huge amount of unknowns, and the type of person it takes to succeed.

How Big Things Get Done https://www.amazon.com/How-Big-Things-Get-Done/dp/0593239512

This is about project planning and has plenty of real examples and case studies.

The Education of Cyrus by Xenophon https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/review-the-education-of-cyrus-b...

This is the best book on leadership and teamwork that I've ever read. You can read this review instead but get a copy of the actual book, too, it's wonderful.

Re: Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things

#36

Post by peterldowns »

ahazred8ta wrote: post #3

Exactly: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World http://www.simonwinchester.com/exactly Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_(book) Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38840.Boyd

I'm extremely excited to read Exactly, thanks for the recommendation.

Re: Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things

#37

Post by iainmerrick »

Janna Levin, Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space. It describes the construction of the LIGO experiment over a span of about 50 years. It does have a lot of character studies (one of Levin’s strengths) but also plenty of details about the incredible equipment and what it took to design it and put it all together.

Re: Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things

#38

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

ahazred8ta wrote: post #3

Exactly: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World http://www.simonwinchester.com/exactly Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_(book) Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38840.Boyd

The thing about Boyd that really resonated with me was.

1) Realizing that he was better at something than everyone else around him.

2) Figuring out what it was that was making him better.

3) Reducing it to practice, so it could be taught to others and refined to become even better.

Amazing story.

Re: Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things

#39

Post by liendolucas »

Digital Apollo by David A. Mindell. An excellent book that describes how the Apollo computer was developed.

Dealers of Lighting Xerox Parc and the dawn of computer age by Michael A. Hiltzik. If you're interested in knowing where the PC as we know it today originated from.

Others have already suggested The Dream Machine which was a book that once started I couldn't stop reading and finished it in about a week.

Edit: Maybe not exactly the book that you might be interested in but I read Mindstorms by Papert and I think his work on education through the use of computers was groundbreaking. Very interesting book.

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