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Ask HN: Recommendations on books and documentaries on tech companies/people?

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Re: Ask HN: Recommendations on books and documentaries on tech companies/people?

#31

Post by 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... [2] https://www.amazon.com/Coders-Work-Reflections-Craft-Program...

Re: Ask HN: Recommendations on books and documentaries on tech companies/people?

#33

Post by rpeden »

Hates_ wrote: post #3

"Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days" is a good collection of stories: https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-Early/...

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.

Re: Ask HN: Recommendations on books and documentaries on tech companies/people?

#34

Post by 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/

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Ask HN: Recommendations on books and documentaries on tech companies/people?

#36

Post by godelmachine »

tw1010 wrote: post #10

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.

The Innovators by Walter Isaacson is your book

Re: Ask HN: Recommendations on books and documentaries on tech companies/people?

#37

Post by 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

Re: Ask HN: Recommendations on books and documentaries on tech companies/people?

#38

Post by 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.

Re: Ask HN: Recommendations on books and documentaries on tech companies/people?

#39

Post by 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...

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