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The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution
The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution
The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution
Audiobook (abridged)8 hours

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

Written by Walter Isaacson

Narrated by Dennis Boutsikaris

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

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About this audiobook

2015 Audie Award Finalist for Nonfiction

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).

Editor's Note

Fascinating history…

The story of the people who built computers and the Internet follows the winding path to the present through innovators like Ada Lovelace, Alan Turing, Larry Page and Bill Gates. It’s an inspiring tale that makes you appreciate the ingenuity of our connected world all the more.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 7, 2014
ISBN9781442376250
Author

Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson is the bestselling author of biographies of Jennifer Doudna, Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein. He is a professor of history at Tulane and was CEO of the Aspen Institute, chair of CNN, and editor of Time. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2023. Visit him at Isaacson.Tulane.edu.

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Reviews for The Innovators

Rating: 4.3439999693999996 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

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  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Ends of many of the chapters are cut off! Please fix otherwise nice book

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Very good high level summary of the people involved in the progression of computer technology. Would definitely recommend, and it's a great jumping off point for more in depth biographies!

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Inspiring , founders , particularly in tech domain should listen to get inspired and understand the importance on sharing their knowledge.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Very extensive work. Learned a lot about history of digital technology
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I usually like these types of books, but this was very boring. Reading the indivisible biographies on each person was a WAAYYYYYY better experience
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Nice read on the history of digital era and its stages
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Good good good good good good good good good good
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Must read for engineers and all who want the important story of tech told to in a clear and exciting way.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I didn’t realize this was an abridged version when I started reading it. There were definitely gaps in the story; so if this is your favorite subject beware.

    While interesting, the most valuable thing I learned was that the history of each piece of the modern computer is not my area of interest. That being said, I bought a hard copy of the book for my computer-minded brother.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Five stars because I really, really liked it.
    This story of how we got from Babbage's Analytical Engine, which could slowly grind out numbers, to IBM's Watson, who could win a Jeopardy match, makes a pitch for collaboration within teams and symbiosis with the machine. For Isaacson, Watson could never be a "who" but he does discuss various aspects of AI.

    Isaacson doesn't overwhelm the non-technical reader with technical terms but tells us enough to appreciate the insights that pushed the concept imagined in 1843 by Ada, Countess of Lovelace and daughter of George, Lord Byron: "to bring together things, facts, ideas, conceptions in new, original, endless, ever-varying combinations."
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book covers a lot of ground - starting in the 19th century with Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, and extending to present-day entrepreneurs like Gates and Jobs. With this comprehensive look at the digital revelation, Isaacson is able to identify trends that led to technological advancements. He particularly focuses on the importance of collaborations rather than the lone genius in creating and commercializing innovations. He also discusses the role of human-computer interaction, noting that the next big innovation may not involve robots who act like humans, but robot-human collaborations. The book did drag a bit in some places (although this may have been because I listening to the audio, which was quite long), and in other places, I would have liked more detail about some of the individual stories. I would have also liked more coverage of what's next in the digital revolution. But as a comprehensive history of the digital revolution thus far, this book works well.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    a chronological list of events, soon a machine might be able to write a similar book ;)
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    There is some magic in the way things are developed. It's not a quantum leap but a million small steps. And not by the same person but by thousands of others. This book reveals the way the computer has been imagined, created, improved and made into what it is tommorow.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    beautiful narration, found it to go to correct depth making it insightful and not ardous
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An excellent review of the history of the digital technology.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Make no mistake, this is not a book written for a reader who is only casually interested in the Digital Revolution. I came to this realization when, after wading through the first third of the book, we were barely into the mid 1970s. As I've commented about several "comprehensive" tomes that have focused on a variety of subjects, I believe the author could have made this admittedly informative book more accessible — and a bit more enjoyable — if he had trimmed many details that simply aren't needed to provide a good grasp of digital innovations. Also, I felt that the book lacked "cohesion" in some spots. I had to give myself a one-month break before returning to "The Innovators." Having said that, I learned a lot about this complex and ever-changing topic. I ended the book a bit weary, but glad that I made the investment of time.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Exceptional - I always felt that I missed something in the internet/WWW thingummy. Gave me some perspective. In conjuction with "the long tail" (chris Anderson) I get it and how I missed it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Isaacson does a tremendous amount of research and this book is no exception. Fantastic, very readable history. I knew a considerable amount of it already from other books, but Isaacson wove an expansive story with appropriate breadth and depth.

    If you ever programmed with punch cards, or learned assembler, or wanted to know more about ARPANET and Linux...or want to wax nostaglic, this is a great book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I was born just a month after the first transistor was demonstrated. How the world has changed since then! And this very readable book tells the story of the digital revolution and the, often weird and quirky, characters who produced it. Or, in many cases, just missed it. And there is a woman on the book's cover for a reason.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Very well written book on the development of computers and all the amazing people and teams that created our amazing tech world. Recommended at Diamond Heart Retreat March 2015.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    After the success of his biography of Steve Jobs, Isaacson returns with a fascinating study of the process by which technology evolves--and, in the case of computer technology, many of the previously unknown individuals responsible. For example, the first text mention of a computer appeared in the early 1840s, from a fascinating woman named Ada Lovelace (whose father was Lord Byron). It took about a century--with many other contributions in fields such as physics, mathematics, materials science, and electrical engineering--to produce the first functional electronic computer. The author stresses that new inventions rarely pop up via a Eureka moment; there need to be a set of conditions that make a particular time and place fertile for innovation. Isaacson included individuals, who, because they lacked some key element, worked in isolation and no matter how brilliant their insights, were relegated to history. The book has one major fault to my taste, and that is the mini-biography the author provides for dozens of previously "invisible" contributors. This style becomes repetitive and worthy of skimming. The author's essential point is worth remembering, but the book is filled with overkill and could have used an energetic editor.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Innovators by David Isaacson (My Review 16 Jan 2015)For those of us that lived thru the birth of the internet era, principally those of the age 65 plus generation, this is a must read book. Isaacson in my view has conceived and well written an excellent historical overview of the development of the Computer from initial concept up to and including todays public usage. The scope is grand stretching from the concepts of Ada Lovelace and Charles Babcock of the 1880 ties through to include the present advances of today’s search engines. In short how did we get to where we are today?You do not need to be an engineering major to enjoy this tale. It is a tale of great interest to me as a Solid State Physics major/Electrical Engineer of the early sixties however, and as an aerospace - analyst / programmer. This book encapsulates the main story line of the recent history of our computer driven technological economy. Much of what happened was behind the scenes for most of us technologists of the Cold War Era. We were all mostly aware of Shockley and his team at Bell Labs inventing the solid state transistor in 1947 and of the ground breaking applications at Fairchild Semi-Conductor and Texas Instruments. But most of us were unaware of the Patent Office guffaws, concerning Microchips and the c Oxide coating and etching saga which is well investigated and recorded by Isaacson.Isaacson seeks to determine what drives innovation and postulates that cooperation and discussion lies at the heart of innovation. However as Newton once said and as co-opted by Einstein, “If I see something new it is only because I stand on the shoulders of those giants that proceeded me.” In short I believe there-in lies the essence of the basis of innovation. Software is given worthy coverage and the development of machine to machine computer communication and other software advances are covered with equal deftness. Personal Computers needed operating systems and Internet package switching technology and the advances in communications across the wide world web. Personal devices would not be so useful as they are today without the decades of technical development that is currently taken for granted these days. All of this development was at the heart of our technological progress which has rapidly advanced over the most recent 25 years. The development leading to the Google Search engines and Wikipedia are also well surveyed. What next one might well ask: Where will all the innovation of the next 25 years lead us? The replacement by computers of once sole human efforts are only in their infancy. Only fools make projections but you have to respect George Orwell’s projections. Watch out for big brother! Chronology - As captured from Isaacson’s “Innovation” & Enhanced1843Analytic Mechanical Devices_ Charles Babbage1843Concept of a Stored Program Instructions- Ada Lovelace(1700-1850) Weaving Machine Paper punch tape controls developed1847 Boolean Algebra –George Boole1890 Hollerith Punch Card Readers1931 Analog Computers-Differential Analyzers – Vannevar Bush1935 Vacuum Tube Diode Switch Circuits-Tommy Flowers!935 Inconsistency Principle formulated- Godel1937 Definition of a stored Computer Program (“On Computable Numbers” -Alan Turing)1937 Information Theory-Entropy-Claude Shannon1939 Bletchley Park Code Breaking Digital Devices (The Polish- Bombe)-Alan Turing1941 Other Electromechanical Digital Computers-Konrad Zuse1943 Colossus Operational at Bletchley-Turing/Flowers1944 ENIAC at Penn initiated-John Von Newman1944 Harvard Mark 1 in operation-???1945 Post War Funding for Academic & Industrial Research Announced - Vannevar Bush!945 ENIAC now functional-???1947 Transistor invented at Bell labs-Shockley Team1950 Communication Concept for non-human AI postulated - Alan Turing1952 First Computer Program Compiler developed-Grace Hopp1954 Texas Instruments markets Transistor Radio’s1956 Shockley founded Shockley Semiconductors1957 Fairchild Semiconductor formed by Robert Noyce & Gordon Moore1957 Russia launches Sputnik1958 First IC Microchips produced- Jack Kilby1958 ARPA initiated.1959 Fairchild Semiconductor invents printable Microchips1960Man-machine interfaces defined-J C R Licklider1960 Telecomm Packet Switching- Paul Baran at RAND1961 US Plans Man on Moon within 10 years1963 Computer networking proposed – Licklider1963 Xerox PARC invents Computer Mouse & Graphic Displays1965 Hypertext proposed for Graphic Interface interplay1965Moore’s Law postulated1967 ARPANET conceptualized and funding proposed-Larry Roberts1966 Packet Switching invented1967 Mike Hodges transferred to USA to advance GEMINI Computer technology1967 Russian Space Probe observes back of the Moon for the first time1968 Intel formed by Royce, Moore & Andy Grove1969 ARPANET transmissions initiated on West Coast1969 First Man to walk on our Moon – Buzz Aldrin1971 Intel 4004 microprocessor in operations1971 Email invented – Ray Tomlinson1972 ATARI home computers in operation1972 INTEL release the 8008 microprocessor1973 Alto pc created at Xerox PARC – Alan Kay1973 Ethernet developed at Xerox PARC – Bob Metcalfe1973 Internet TCP/IP protocols developed – Vint Cerf & Bob Kahn1975 ALTAIR personal Computer released at MITS1975 BASIC for ALTAIR coded- Bill Gates & Paul Allen1975 APPLE 1 launched - Steve Wozniak & Steve Jobs1977 APPLE II released1978 Internet Bulletin Boards excite home computer enthusiasts1979 IBM commissions MS to develop OS for IBM pcs1981 HAYES Modems released for home pc’s1983MS releases first WINDOWS OS1983 A free GNU OS is initiated – Richard Stallman1984 Apple releases the MACINTOSH1985 AOL established as an email/news-service provider1991 LINUX OS released - Linus Torvaids1991 WWW Wide World Web released – Tim Berners-Lee1993 MOSAIC Browser released- Marc Anderson1995 Wiki Wiki Web goes on-line – Ward Cunningham1997 IBM Deep Blue beats Garry Kasparov1998 GOOGLE Search Engine launched – Larry Page & Sergey Brin2001 Wiki-pedia launched- Jimmy Wales & Larry Sanger
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    An interesting history of the fascinating story of our digital age from its origins of ideas on thinking machines to Web we take for granted today. Isaacson's central theme on its development is that it takes a wide collaborative effort to push the boundaries and deliver the complex tools and services of the electronic age. This conclusion seems obvious but is no less significant. He also shows how some took the available science and ingeniously used it to put forth products and services that became wildly successful. Others who stayed within the academic side of the breakthroughs however became footnotes to this history.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Fairly comprehensive history of the technology which led to the development of computers and the Internet.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A solid read. The author has a kind of straw man- whether computers can eventually overtake man- (no) but other than that this is an excellent and well written history. The people who mattered in computing and the net arewell described, with little bios and evidence of their craziness. There are also lots of pictures, which are very helpful.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Author Walter Isaacson appeared on the weekend CSpan book program talking about this book. After the program I placed a hold on the book and waited for several weeks for a copy to be available at the county library. I made my living working in computer science for many years. I found the book fascinating. There was a lot of computer history that I wasn't aware of even though part of the time I was actively involved in what was going on. If you are interested in what happened to bring about the Digital Revolution I highly recommend "The Innovators."
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Isaacson has done more than most to bring biographical and historical rigour to the modern technological world (see his books on Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, plus many other articles and comments). Here he attempts to describe how our digitally-focused world came to be through the invention and innovation of the digital computer and electronic networks. He selects 10 key inventions/innovations and presents narrative histories of how they came to be, including potted biographies of key players. A key theme of the book is how all of these stories are intertwined to some greater or lesser degree; how inventions and innovations are always building on what went before. Clearly, this leads to controversy and argument over primacy and ownership, all of which Isaacson notes and makes central to his theme: invention is not enough and must be accompanied by execution, exploitation and application to be true innovation and have global impact.This is not a general history of digital computing. Isaacson focuses on the technologies that brought us access to personal computing and global interconnectedness through the Internet and does this through the individuals he believes contributed most to these developments. This means that the whole area of mainframe computing is ignored and IBM, arguably the dominant engine of digital computer technology in the 1960s, '70s and '80s, barely gets a mention.As always, Isaacson writes with enthusiasm and verve, wearing his research and sources lightly. An easy and informative introduction to the history of personal digital computing and networking.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    ARC provided by NetGalleyIsaacson has become the go to of the biography of the modern world, with biographies of Steve Jobs, Einstein, Kissinger, and now a “biography” of the digital revolution. Isaacson’s comfortable reading style sets us out on the path of history, showcasing not the individual, but the groups, that helped create the world as we know it. Isaacson chooses to focus on the hackers, the inventors, the entrepreneurs who placed and helped create the world we know today, beginning with greats such as Ada Lovelace--the first ever computer programmer, Alan Turin, Grace Hopper, John Mauchly, and more. He describes the ideas that inspired them and generations to come. This book should be required reading for anyone in the tech field, business, economics, history, education...well pretty much about anything to be honest. There’s a little bit of something that everyone can take from this book. I give it four out of five stars.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book was a fascinating and entertaining history of the progression of the computer and related things, such as the Internet. I learned a lot and I'm glad I did.Isaacson starts out with Lord Byron's daughter, Ada Lovelace. That's right -- in the age of the Romantics some 150 years ago or so! She's generally credited with starting the computer revolution, as she envisioned a computing device based upon Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. Her writings on this "engine" show what appears to be the first algorithm designed to be carried out by a machine, and as a result, she's often credited with being the world's first computer programmer. Isn't that fascinating?The book tracks the progression of computing from the 19th century into the 20th and then into the 21st. Up comes Alan Turing, the ENIAC computer, which employed the first real programmers in history -- all of them women! -- the invention of the transistor and the microchip, Ethernet, and all of the wonderful inventions at Xerox PARC, where they invented the graphical user interface (GUI) for the computer screen, doing away with the command line prompt, the mouse, and networking, all of which was essentially stolen by Steve Jobs for the creation of the Mac. Of course, then Gates stole from him and Jobs was beside himself with the audacity. Ah, karma.The book also introduces Gordon Moore, the originator of Moore's Law, that states that technology will double in power and possibilities every 18 months. In addition, the author hits on Grace Hopper, Andy Groves, William Shockley, Gates, Jobs, Woz, Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the worldwide web, Linus Trovalds, the inventor of LINUX, and the people who started Google. It's an inspiring lineup of inventors and -- key word here -- collaborators. The author believes strongly that collaboration was the key to computing development and he might be right. He provides plenty of examples of people toiling away by themselves, only to be forgotten by history for missing the boat on what would have been a great product.The reviews of this book are pretty good. However, I read one stunning one recently that said this was the worst history he's ever read and that the biographies are mediocre. He even criticizes the author's treatment of Ada as being insufficient. I thought he did her justice. I've never even seen her mentioned anywhere else before. He spends a lot of time on her here. This reviewer was on acid and I let him know what I thought of his lousy review. If you're remotely interested in how PCs came to be, how the Internet was created and evolved, etc., et al, this is definitely a book for you to read. Recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    History of people who made computers and the internet what they are today. Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper get good time dedicated to them. The main message Isaacson wants you to take away is that creativity and innovation are iterative; most advances, even if they have one very smart and imaginative person at their center, spread and succeed because groups of people coalesce (or already exist) to take advantage of them and to tweak them so that they work better. Various forms of digital computing, for example, were independently invented, but several just died for want of support. Relatedly, innovation requires a time and place, and social resources, sufficient to support it—Bill Gates had the computers he played with growing up; Ada Lovelace could see the future, but she didn’t have the resources to build it.