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...

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...?

For instance, I read the "iWoz" 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.

Another nice book was "Just For Fun", 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.

Those are the kinds stories I'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.

Do you have any recommendations in the form of books, documentaries, blog posts or other sorts of material?

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

[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...

[kar1181]

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

[krylon]

I agree, it is a great book!

[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".

[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...

[timdellinger]

Speaking of Moneyball, everything written by Michael Lewis is great. He paints great pictures of interesting people, and the adventures that they have in the workplace.

[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.

[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.

[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...

[Hates_]

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

[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.

[Simorgh]

I quite enjoyed this book because it gave insight into the hard work and dedication that characterised many individuals, such as Max Levchin, the co-founder of Paypal.

As an aside, I also recommend Hatching Twitter by Nick Bilton. This book details the tumultuous roller-coaster ride that was the early days of Twitter. I feel it is an essential read to truly understand the mentality, minds and drive of many within the start-up world.

[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.

[timdellinger]

I have found that anything put out by Robert X. Cringely is worthwhile.

[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

[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)

[linuxlizard]

Definitely one of the best tech case study books I've ever read. Book flows so well.

[sizzzzlerz]

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.

[sterwill]

I recommend this book every time someone asks for recommendations about computer company history. This book is one of my all-time favorites.

[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/ It covers the creation of Compaq

- American Experience: Silicon Velley - 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 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... 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... 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/

[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

[whitingx]

Recommendations in this area;

Books

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

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

Documentaries

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

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

Blog Posts

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.

[stevenmays]

Currently reading "The Making Of The Atomic Bomb" and it's so comprehensive.

[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)

[2] https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22connection...