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Ask HN: Books on the inside stories of big tech?

11 points by laurencer ↗ HN
It's been really interesting seeing some of the discussions in the internal emails from senior tech leaders that are getting published - e.g. https://twitter.com/TechEmails

Does anyone know of any books of other resources that contain similar insights or show the history/inner-workings of big tech companies?

Some good examples I've come across in the past include:

- The One Device - Show Stoppers!

6 comments

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bwb
You might like this list Joanne McNeil did on "The Best Books On The Origins Of The Tech Industry" https://shepherd.com/best-books/the-origins-of-the-tech-indu...

She wrote a book called "Lurking: How a Person Became a User" that is really interesting and explores the internet from the POV of the user.

This is more about the origins of the tech industry so a little older focus, but still had some cool stuff.

bwh2
I enjoyed these books:

* Strategy Rules

* How Google Works

* Founders at Work

5cott0
Hatching Twitter - Nick Bilton

Bad Blood - John Carreyrou

How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story - Billy Gallagher

Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork - Reeves Wiedeman

Whistleblower: My Unlikely Journey to Silicon Valley and Speaking Out Against Injustice - Susan Fowler

Uncanny Valley - Anna Wiener

What Tech Calls Thinking: An Inquiry Into the Intellectual Bedrock of Silicon Valley - Adrian Daub

The Scapegoat - René Girard

yesenadam
In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High Tech Marketing Disasters is a history of computing told by its terrible business decisions. Reading this book, it seems the whole history of computing is made of astoundingly terrible business decisions. Maybe that's almost true. Very entertaining and informative. I learnt a lot, extremely highly recommended. Chapters on IBM, Digital Research, Apple, Microsoft, OS/2, Borland, Intel, Motorola, Google, Novell, Netscape, etc. Second edition 2006.