Books like The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

01

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

James Gleick · Science

The Information traces the history of information — as a concept, a technology, and a way of understanding the universe — from the talking drums of West Africa through the telegraph, the printing press, the telephone, and into the digital age.

Both dig into computing.

02

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

Charles Petzold · Science

Code is Charles Petzold's explanation of how computers work, built from first principles.

Both dig into computing.

03

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution

Steven Levy · Science

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution is Steven Levy's account of the community of computer enthusiasts who drove the digital revolution from the late 1950s through the early 1980s — the original hackers of MIT's Tech Model Railroad Club and later AI lab, the hardware hackers of the Bay Area Homebrew Computer Club, and the software entrepreneurs who built the early PC industry.

Both dig into technology history.

04

Blue Ocean Strategy

W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne · Business

Blue Ocean Strategy is Kim and Mauborgne's case that the most successful companies don't compete in existing markets by beating rivals at their own game — they create new market spaces where competition is irrelevant.

Both dig into innovation.

05

Chaos: Making a New Science

James Gleick · Science

Chaos: Making a New Science, published in 1987, tells the story of how a loose network of scientists working across meteorology, mathematics, biology, and physics in the 1960s and 1970s developed chaos theory — the study of systems that are deterministic but unpredictable because tiny differences in initial conditions produce wildly different outcomes.

A kindred science read.

06

How the Internet Happened

Brian McCullough · History

How the Internet Happened covers the commercial history of the internet from the release of Mosaic in 1993 to the launch of the iPhone in 2007 — the window in which the web went from academic experiment to the defining infrastructure of modern life.

Shares technology history and innovation with The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution.

07

How We Got to Now

Steven Johnson · History

How We Got to Now traces six innovations — glass, cold, sound, clean, time, and light — and follows each one through unexpected chains of consequence into the present.

Shares technology history and innovation with The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution.

08

Where Wizards Stay Up Late

Katie Hafner & Matthew Lyon · History

Where Wizards Stay Up Late is the history of ARPANET, the government-funded network that became the technical foundation of the internet.

Shares collaboration and innovation with The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution.

09

The Extended Mind

Annie Murphy Paul · Science

The Extended Mind is Annie Murphy Paul's argument that the brain is not the only seat of cognition.

Both dig into collaboration.

10

Where Is My Flying Car?

J. Storrs Hall · Science

Where Is My Flying Car?

Both dig into innovation.

11

Americana

Bhu Srinivasan · History

Americana is Bhu Srinivasan's attempt to tell the history of American capitalism through its defining industries and the entrepreneurs who built them.

Both dig into innovation.

12

Articulating Design Decisions

Tom Greever · Business

Articulating Design Decisions addresses a gap that most design education ignores: knowing how to make good decisions is necessary but not sufficient.

Both dig into collaboration.