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

190 points by __exit__ ↗ HN
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!

117 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 160 ms ] thread
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...

krylon
I agree, it is a great book!
kar1181
Agreed, it's one of my favourite books of all time.
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.

fsloth
'The Dream Machine: J. C. R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal' by M. Mitchell Waldrop was an amazing historical vertical slice from the beginnings of computation, through various military industrial escapades, through the ultimate demo to finally to Xeroc Parc.

It answers the question "where did the personal computer come from" and the answer is not some garage in silicon valley, but is far more interesting and complex.

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.
n_t
I agree. While initial struggling days were interesting but later I had to push myself to finish the book.
emodendroket
It was brief enough that the tedious bits weren't a big deal, in my opinion.
i_don_t_know
"Soul of a new machine" by Tracy Kidder.
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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.
sterwill
I recommend this book every time someone asks for recommendations about computer company history. This book is one of my all-time favorites.
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.
pjmorris
'Programmers At Work', Susan Lammers. It's more about the individuals than the companies they create, but the insights are (still) valuable.
pjmorris
'Gates', Stephen Manes. It's a biography of Bill Gates, but you see a good deal of how Microsoft came to be.
pjmorris
'Microsoft Secrets', Cusumano, Selby. A fairly detailed examination of how Microsoft ran in the mid-90's.
tw1010
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.
godelmachine
The Innovators by Walter Isaacson is your book
pjmorris
Sherry Turkle is an MIT sociologist. She has written several books about the culture of technology. I haven't read them, so I won't give recommendations.
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.
stevenmays
Currently reading "The Making Of The Atomic Bomb" and it's so comprehensive.
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.
olavgg
Commodore a company on the edge! Great book about the individuals involved in management and engineering creating the famous 6502 microprocessor and how they built a best selling computer company world wide. Why they struggled in the US, but dominated in Europe. That book should be converted to a short tv-series. Jack Tramiel would be an awesome character, brutal and kind!
czardoz
"Pirates of the Silicon Valley" and "In the realm of the Hackers"
goda90
Just a note that Pirates of the Silicon Valley is a docudrama, so maybe not 100% accurate, but still a great watch.
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.
santix
"The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation" by Jon Gertner.
sizzzzlerz
Its a very good book. Today, one might question a company investing so much money into pure research but Bell Labs produced 8 Nobel Laureates, tens of thousands of patents, who knows how many papers, PhDs, not to mention inventions that directly benefited Bell's primary business in telephones. Some of those papers, Claude Shannon's, for instance, on information theory, are responsible for the creation of entire industries.
cvaidya1986
Couple of top selling books on Facebook , one one Snapchat ( look up on amazon ) , Mastery by Robert Greene and How I Built This podcast by Guy Raz. Enough material to know how to build ten unicorns.
krylon
I can recommend "I Sing the Body Electronic: A Year with Microsoft on the Multimedia Frontier" by Fred Moody. It is pretty old, and I think it's been out of print for a while, but if you can get your hands on a copy, it is well worth the effort.

It details the work of a team working on a children's encyclopedia, but it also gives some very interesting insights into Microsoft's corporate culture (of the early 1990s at least) and social dynamics.

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".
pomber
No kindle version?
inetsee
Sorry it took me so long to reply. Amazon does list a Kindle version as being available.
gregcrv
“RiP!: A Remix Manifesto“ by Brett Gaylor

About relationship between intellectual property and hackers

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.
g_bellard
The Innovaters by Walter Issacson, a must have.
godelmachine
I will recommend The Innovators a 1000 times
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...

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

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