I have a soft-spot for books about Silicon Valley - at first, because I was just as fascinated by the products/apps/websites that were emerging from the region, and the ways in which they changed our lives (for the better and... not). This book, however, takes readers back a little further - covering the generation who invented and developed everything we'd need to get to where we are today (in the 1970s and 80s). Well-written, well-researched, and engaging throughout. Definitely recommended.

TROUBLEMAKERS by Leslie Berlin is all about "Silicon Valley's Coming of Age" and as such it focuses on the years from 1969 to 1984. I was shocked to realize that over the space of a few years (and roughly thirty-five miles) these five major industries were born: personal computing, video games, biotechnology, venture capital, and advanced semiconductor logic. Berlin is Project Historian for the Silicon Valley Archives at Stanford University and author of The Man Behind the Microchip. In her new book, TROUBLEMAKERS, she tells the story of several innovators such as "one of seven women among nearly eight hundred graduate engineering students" at Stanford in the late 1960s: Sandra Kurtzig, who ultimately became the first woman to take a high-tech company public. Others who are profiled include Bob Taylor (Defense Department and Xerox internet guru); Al Alcorn (video game/Pong designer); Mike Markkula (Apple executive); Niels Reimers (Stanford academic); Robert Swanson (Genentech and venture capital innovator); and Fawn Alvarez (ROLM telecom executive). TROUBLEMAKERS is truly fascinating reading about the culture, challenges and triumphs associated with a time of dramatic change and will be of special interest to students of business and technological history. There is an extensive bibliography and notes section.

And you can soon check out GREAT AT WORK by Morten T. Hansen who just crafted a wonderful piece about "The Key to Success? Doing Less" in The Wall Street Journal.

Link in post: https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-succeed-in-business-do-less-1515770816

This is a wonderful history of Silicon Valley, packed with little known details and narratives from people who often don't talk much. I was a programmer at Atari from 1980 to 1982, and I learned a ton of new info about Al Alcorn. I appreciate Leslie Berlin's scholarship, too. She has written a meticulously researched book that is compelling and engaging. Well done!

Leslie Berlin's narrative provided a contemporary view of what I grew up calling "the social network". I appreciated the vast amount of information and providing a view into the fast-paced technological world that we live in. I found it to be very informative and an interesting read. The history behind and story behind the usual apple and facebook people that I grew up listening about was beyond expanded in this book and I appreciated that. The real deal, engaging, factual, and very intelligent. Kudos to Leslie Berlin.