THE INNOVATORS, by Walter Isaacson
(2014, Simon & Schuster)
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INFORMALLY: Though this text is an
excellent one and one that makes the attempt, it is impossible to
capture the spirit of what one might call the character and genius
(read geniuses) of what has come to be known as Silicon Valley, CA.
There is an entire set of circumstances and confluence of events and
other factors that led, and has and had led to every single inch of
technological discovery over the years, and in reading this valuable
book one gathers the sense of this and the criticality and indeed the
overall gravity and seriousness of modern consumer and other
technological discovery and implementation. All this despite the
apparent clowning and colorful carrying on (read again, irreverence)
of different personalities at various places including at Apple,
Pixar, ORACLE and others. Walter Isaacson, in this well – prepared
and researched text does make an outstanding effort to capture in a
comprehensible image, with all the implications of that, the history
of the different figures that are memorable and worth commemorating
about the place.
Though there are literally dozens upon
dozens of people who contributed to what the author of this text
proposes as a chain or cascading and crowding of brilliant people
oriented toward technological innovation and invention, themselves,
their families, their honorable associates, and their extended
families and friends, all sometimes even inching their way through
things, individually or in groups, or making leaps and bounds as has
been done over the years with IC's and the like, each of the major
people one might propose by this narrative has been and is simply
larger than life and in all evidence and obviously of greater mind
and spirit, sometimes than is imaginable by the line and rank and
file. For some this book is like a who's who or even a dogged and
informative summary only of what could have started out as a ten
thousand – page text. For others, the story is simple enough and
captures the tone and aura of the place or places that are Silicon
Valley, indeed quite nicely, and as yet leaving much of the technical
and complicated jargon, the acronyms, even the buzz words of the day
out of the writing in order to adequately portray these uncommon and
very capable business and technology leaders as they need to appear.
Despite the dozens and dozens of people mentioned here, all
noteworthy, and not just the prize – winners, the following really
stand out for the time being, and you might beg to differ, of which
comments and other words invited: Hopper, von Neumann, Terman,
Shockley, the Intel founders, the ARPA and related projects, the
Hayes modem, the Apple Company, Inc., founders; the Microsoft
founders and their team(s,) and many, many others, and certainly including those over the years who have notably
left the door open to all whereas in such places often the
connotation of such things is the exit door remains always open as
derivative of this in most cases.
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Isaacson gives very adequate and
detailed explanations and narratives, again, of how the innovators
here recall their work and the cut – and – try methods and
processes used in addition to the breakthroughs of equal, or lesser
import that included not only variations and improvements to
technologies but to the cost structure of delivering these at a
reasonable price to business and consumer end – users. In the end,
and even for most people who know of and who have read this text,
there might be one or two, maybe more, businesses that stand out as
excellent in the technology hotbed itself, and for me this is
companies like Varian, VersaTec, Cray, and then Pixar Studios, even ORACLE and
Lockheed as well among the all in all. An excellent read even for the "just curious", and worth the price in
time and place of reading to any level of detail. Great!
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