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

by Isaacson, Walter
ISBN: 9781476708706
4.5 (2)
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Overview

Following his blockbuster biography of Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson's New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed The Innovators is a "riveting, propulsive, and at times deeply moving" (The Atlantic) story of the people who created the computer and the Internet.

What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail?

The Innovators is a masterly saga of collaborative genius destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution--and an indispensable guide to how innovation really happens. Isaacson begins the adventure with Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter, who pioneered computer programming in the 1840s. He explores the fascinating personalities that created our current digital revolution, such as Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, John von Neumann, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Robert Noyce, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, and Larry Page.

This is the story of how their minds worked and what made them so inventive. It's also a narrative of how their ability to collaborate and master the art of teamwork made them even more creative. For an era that seeks to foster innovation, creativity, and teamwork, The Innovators is "a sweeping and surprisingly tenderhearted history of the digital age" (The New York Times).

  • Format: TradePaperback
  • Author: Isaacson, Walter
  • ISBN: 9781476708706
  • Condition: Used
  • Dimensions: 9.20 x 1.40
  • Number Of Pages: 560
  • Publication Year: 2015

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  • How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

    Sasha S. - 5 years 4 months ago

    Walter Isaacson's The Innovators is a very thorough examination of the key players in the tech-world that brought about the digital age we have come to depend on today. The narrative is very engaging and covers a lot of ground, and remains informative in the level of detail it provides that will satisfy the tech-crowd, but still is accessible to the popular reader by not getting bogged down in unnecessary jargon. Overall, a great read about a topic that has come to shape our very lives.

    HPB Staff Review

  • How We Got Personal Computers and the Internet

    Greg B. - 5 years 6 months ago

    wish I could remember what prompted me to read this book. Was it a positive tweet? A favorable mention in another book? The jacket copy? I’m not sure, but I’m very glad that I did, as I enjoyed it immensely, even though I’m not much of a techie. I can pinpoint two reasons why the book appealed to me. First, the subject matter is just plain interesting because computers and the Internet touch my life so directly. The story of the intertwined development of these tools is an amazing account of great leaps of imagination by a set of fascinating, quirky characters. And it was stunning to realize how quickly these technological revolutions have occurred. We take personal computers and the Internet for granted today, but they are still very recent developments. Second, and more important, I greatly enjoyed Isaacson’s writing. Having read his Benjamin Franklin biography earlier with appreciation, and having heard him speak last fall on his new bio of Leonardo Da Vinci, I was eager to read more of his writing, and was not disappointed with this book. His prose is clear, never overly technical (although there were places where I strained to understand the technology he was describing, such as the “packet-switching” scheme that made the Internet possible). But beyond mere clarity, Isaacson writes in a style that is often playful, even slightly cheeky, a pleasant variation from most serious biographers/historians. One of the great delights of the book is Isaacson’s entry point. He starts with a chapter on the fascinating Ada, countess of Lovelace (1815–1852), the only legitimate child of the poet Lord Byron. Why? Ada was a gifted mathematician who worked with the inventor Charles Babbage on his mechanical computing machine, known as the “analytical engine.” She perceived that such a machine might be able to do much more than make mathematical calculations, having applications for anything employing symbolic language, including music. Because of her theorizing, some historians regard her as the first computer programmer. Again and again throughout The Innovators, Isaacson looks back to Ada, showing her remarkable prescience. Finally, I appreciate Isaacson because he has no fear of pointing out ironies or of making evaluations. He pauses regularly to ask how an important innovation came about or who should receive credit for a significant development. Usually, his answer is collaboration or collaborators. He shows how, in several cases, a person with technical expertise teamed with an entrepreneur or marketing genius to achieve a product breakthrough neither could have pulled off alone. He also stresses the important role that technological consortiums, such as Bell Labs and Xerox Park, where numerous gifted men and women worked closely together, played in the development of computers and the Internet. All in all, The Innovators is an outstanding work of focused history.