Adam Fisher is kind of a genius. He lets Silicon Valley speak for itself by writing a book of quotes that read like actual conversations. I’ve never read a book like this before. It’s the kind of book you couldn’t put down. History is made of incredible stories. The one behind Silicon Valley is one of the craziest.
Valley of Genius is a time machine that drops you into the garages and chaotic offices where the future was invented to relive its greatest moments, from the dawn of the personal computer and the internet to the rise of today’s largest corporations such as Google and Facebook.
The author conducted more than two hundred interviews with the most influential contributors such as figures from Xerox PARC, Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, the creators of Mosaic and Netscape Navigator, the founders of Wired magazine, but also employees involved in the origins of Pixar, eBay, Google, Twitter, Facebook and others. The author even carefully dug through archives to find quotes for the leading figures who had passed away to let them join the conversations.
Valley of Genius is one of most brilliant works of computer literature. Numerous other books have been written about the success story of Silicon Valley. For example, you can read How Google Works or Creativity Inc. to understand Google’s and Pixar unique cultures. But most of these books miss the most important chapter, the beginning, that you will discover unfiltered in Valley of Genius. You will learn about Pixar before it was Pixar, when its cofounders were still working for a recently separated George Lucas having lose half of his fortune, waiting for Moore’s Law to make it possible to create a full-length animated film they were dreaming of. You will discover the story of eBay when its founder declined a job offer to prove that strangers can trust each other online. The book is full of similar anecdotes capturing the fortunate coincidences in the making of the valley, including the bright side but also the dark side of one of the most creative periods in human history.
About the author
Julien Sobczak works as a software developer for Scaleway, a French cloud provider. He is a passionate reader who likes to see the world differently to measure the extent of his ignorance. His main areas of interest are productivity (doing less and better), human potential, and everything that contributes in being a better person (including a better dad and a better developer).
Read Full Profile