The Innovators - Walter Isaacson

The Innovators

By Walter Isaacson

  • Release Date: 2014-10-07
  • Genre: Electrical Engineering
Score: 4
4
From 294 Ratings
$16.99 On itunes Buy on Amazon

Description

Following his blockbuster biography of Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson’s New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed The Innovators is a “riveting, propulsive, and at times deeply moving” (The Atlantic) story of the people who created the computer and the internet.

What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail?

The Innovators is a masterly saga of collaborative genius destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution—and an indispensable guide to how innovation really happens. Isaacson begins the adventure with Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron’s daughter, who pioneered computer programming in the 1840s. He explores the fascinating personalities that created our current digital revolution, such as Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, John von Neumann, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Robert Noyce, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, and Larry Page.

This is the story of how their minds worked and what made them so inventive. It’s also a narrative of how their ability to collaborate and master the art of teamwork made them even more creative. For an era that seeks to foster innovation, creativity, and teamwork, The Innovators is “a sweeping and surprisingly tenderhearted history of the digital age” (The New York Times).

Reviews

  • fabulous work

    5
    By OfallonRon
    As enlightening as the “Steve Jobs” biography, this book merges the benefits all the great inventors bring into fruition, a symbiosis of creativity and invention coupled with the thirst for a better human experience. A better human experience is governed by human values and morals deep within our appreciation of the humanities.

  • Waste of time

    1
    By Ekström
    A book that doesn’t contribute with anything.

  • The Innovators

    5
    By By W. Isaacson
    Very excellent and readable. Almost makes everything in the digital age make sense! Thanks to the author for putting in the effort. Here's to science and the humanities mingling forever! (from a liberal arts graduate in the 1960s)

  • Love of the Machine

    4
    By G_dforsaken
    This book is amazing. I was up until all hours of the night reading, reading, reading & learning, learning, learning. The interconnectedness of the world & how rapidly it is increasing is amazing. To see what has happened to technology since I bought my 1st IBM computer in 1982 for $3450 with two 10 megabit (yes, megabit) hard drives & how it has gotten here continues to amaze me. Mr Isaacson enthralled me.

  • Beautifully written

    5
    By flmswim
    Having lead a successful career in Silicon Valley for 35 years, the book is very well written, only wanting for more.

  • The Innovators

    5
    By BCCGOLF
    This book made me regret my decision in the late '70s to major in history at Stanford and relegate my one computer science class to the category of "interesting but not useful." I am in awe of all the innovators described in this book and those who aren't mentioned as well. If you read this book you will learn not only what made many of them obsess toward innovation but also the factors that led some of the innovators to become household names and others to be lost to history.

  • Real Story is Obscured

    2
    By Rouviere Media
    Walter is a skilled writer with a broad background, but he seems to be more focused on the sex lives of his subjects than he is on the topic. Very unfortunate lost opportunity to tell the true story.

  • Great book!

    5
    By usingfromjersey
    Read a great book over Thanksgiving break! Highly recommend to anyone who has ever taken apart a piece of electronics to see how it worked. "The next phase of the Digital Revolution will bring even more new methods of marrying technology with the creative industries, such as media, fashion, music, entertainment, education, literature, and the arts. This innovation will come from people who are able to link beauty to engineering, humanity to technology, and poetry to processors. It will come from creators who can flourish where the arts intersect with the sciences and who have a rebellious sense of wonder that opens them to the beauty of both.”

  • The Innovators

    3
    By Harry Macy
    The latest from Mr. Isaacson has a bit too much biography on each of the "innovators" and quite thin on explanations and backgrounds of the tech aspects of each innovation. Recommended for history and biography buffs; not for geeks.

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