Product: 1442376244

Originally airport reading - amazed me in the end. Once I came over an article on the Internet; I guess it was on Fortune speaking about the fortune 500 CEOs which book they value most. It was saying that about 30% of them named Good to Great and Innovators got some honorable mention getting about 15% of the votes. The thing that author, got admiration of Elon Musk for Franklin and Einstein biographies and after he was approached by Steve Jobs to write his biography he would have got access to practically anyone. So I took an advantage and bought it in the airport of Copenhagen choosing it over other more academic books like Blue Ocean Strategy etc. Although there is possibility that you might think the book was written from the leftover notes that weren’t used in the Jobs book it is a good starting place to understand the context of the information age. I really enjoy making highlights when reading than I go through the highlights and while typing them it makes me remember some stuff better.

First it was daughter of Byron Ada who found that numbers of cogs can be interpreted in a way different than just mathematical entities.
1937 would become annus mirabilis of the computer age, and the result would be triumph of four properties, somewhat interrelated, that would define modern computing: digital, binary, electronic, general purpose
at Bell Labs they decided to use the system of logic, formulated ninety years earlier by the British mathematician George Boole.
Howard Aiken: the desire to economize time and mental effort in arithmetical computations and to eliminate human liability to error is probably is as old as history of arithmetic itself.
Zuse like many others was driven by the desire to mechanize the tedious process of solving mathematical equations.
Atanasoff tale is evidence that we should not in fact romanticize such loners. He never got his machine to be fully functional. Had he been at Bell Labs, amid swarms of technicians and engineers and repairmen, or at a big research university, a solution would likely have been found for fixing the card reader as well as the other balky parts of his contraption. There would have been team members left behind to put on the finishing touches, or at least to remember what was being built.
A new idea comes suddenly and in a rather intuitive way, but intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience. Einstein.
A physicist is the one whos concerned with truth; an engineer is one whos concerned with getting the job done. Eckert
ENIAC electronic numerical integrator and computer hundred feet long and eight feet high; filling the space of what could be a modes three-bedroom apartment;
Knowing that great conceptions are worth little without precision execution Eckert was not shy about micromanaging.
Ideal computer is a machine that is electronic, general purpose and programmable; - ENIAC completed by Prosper Eckert and John Mauchly in November 1945 was the first machine to incorporate the full set of traits of a modern computer;
Starting with Charles Babbage the men who invented computers focused primarily on hardware. But the women who became involved in WWII saw early on the importance of programming, just as Ada Lovelace had.
The locus of technological innovation according to IBM was the corporation. The myth of the lone radical inventor working in the laboratory or basement was replaced by the reality of teams of faceless organizational engineers contributing incremental advancements.
What may seem like creative leaps the Eureka moment are actually the result of an evolutionary process that occurs when ideas, concepts, technologies and engineering methods ripen together.
One night the machine conkd out - they found a moth with wingspan of four inches that had gotten smashed in one of the electromechanical relays first actual case of being found from then on debugging the machine;
Computer innovators like other pioneers, can find themselves left behind if they stuck in their ways, the same traits that make them inventive such as stubbornness and focus, can make them resistant to change when new ideas come along. Steve Jobs was famously stubborn and focused, yet he dazzled and baffled colleagues by suddenly changing his mind when he realized he needed to think different.
Women of ENIAC showed the programming of a computer could be just as significant as the design of its hardware.
If mentally superhuman race ever develops, the hydrogen bomb developer Edward Teller once said its members will resemble Johnny von Neumann
Neumann was an amazing combination of a very brilliant man who knows that hes brilliant but at the same time is very shy and modest about presenting his ideas to other people
The thing that von Neumann had which other geniuses have is the ability to pick out in a particular problem the one crucial thing thats important
The sparks come from ideas rubbing against each other rather than as bolts out of the blue.
In 2011 a milestone was reached: Apple and Google spent more on lawsuits and payments involving patents than they did on research and development of new products.
There was downside to the patent protection given to hardware innovation: the proprietary model produced companies that were so entrenched and defensive they would miss out on the personal computer revolution in the early 1070s;
Xerox PARC and other corporate research satellites that followed, Bell Labs showed how sustained innovation could occur when people with a variety of talents ere brought together, preferably in close physical proximity where they could have frequent meetings and serendipitous encounters. That was the upside. The downside was that these were big bureaucracies under corporate thumbs; Bell Labs, like Xerox PARC, showed the limits of industrial organisations when they don’t have passionate leaders and rebels who can turn innovations into great products;
Kellys mission was to make innovation something that an industrial organization could do on a regular basis;
Shockley: it takes many men in many fields of science, pooling their various talents, to funnel all the necessary research into the development of one new device;
It is in the mind of single person that creative ideas and concepts are born;
It became clear that there was a lot that the theorists, engineers and metallurgists could learn from one another.
Creative energy generated by physical proximity;
Old physicist joke: they knew the approach worked in practice, but could they make it work in theory?
Transistor was one of the most important discoveries of the twentieth century. It came from the partnership of a theorist and an experimentalist working side by side, in a symbiotic relationship, bouncing theories and result back and forth in real time. It also came from embedding them in an environment where they could walk down a king corridor and bump into experts who could manipulate the impurities in germanium or be in a study group populated by people who understood the quantum-mechanical explanations of surface states, or sit in a cafeteria with engineers who knew all the tricks for transmitting phone signals over long distances. transistor by switching the device in and out, a distinct gain in speech level could be heard;
Bell Labs was cauldron of innovation . in addition to the transistor, it pioneered computer circuitry, laser technology, and cellular telephony. It was however less good at capitalizing on its inventions. As part of a regulated company that had a monopoly on most phone services, it was not hungry for new products, and it was legally restrained from leveraging its monopoly to enter other markets. In order to stave off public criticism and antitrust actions, it liberally licensed its patents to other companies. For the transistor, it set a remarkably low fee, $25,000 for any company that wanted them, and it even offered seminars explaining manufacturing techniques.
Like Steve Jobs, Haggerty was able to project a reality distortion field that he used to push people to accomplish things they thought impossible; Transistors were sold to the military 16$ apiece, but in order to break into a consumer market Haggerty insisted that his engineers find a way to make them so that they could be sold for less than $3.
Haggerty made the deal in June 1945 and typically insisted that the device be on the market by that November. It was.
The seeds were planted for a shift in perception of electronic technology, especially among the young. It would no longer be province for only big corporations and the military. It could also empower individuality, personal freedom, creativity and even a bit of rebellious spirit.
One problem with successful teams , particularly intense ones is that sometimes they break up. It takes special type of leader inspiring yet also nurturing, competitive yet collaborative to hold such teams together.
Another skill of great team leaders is the ability to instill a nonhierarchical esprit de corps.
Shockley setting up company in California;
Some leaders are able to be willful and demanding while still inspiring loyalty. They celebrate audaciousness in a way that makes them charismatic.
Many transformative innovators have been similarly stubborn about pushing a new idea, but Shockley crossed the line from being visionary to being hallucinatory;
Sometimes the difference between geniuses and jerks hinges on whether their ideas turn out to be right. If Shockleys diode had proved practical, or if he had evolved it into an integrated circuit he may have again been regarded as visionary.
A key challenge for managers is how to strike a balance between being collegial and being decisive you need to get calibration precise;
Youre better of to go out and start your own company and fail than it is to stick at one company for thirty years;
Because computers had to be made small enough to fit into rockets nose cone, it was imperative to find ways to cram hundreds and then thousands of transistors into any devices. the result was an integrated circuit, also known as microchip;
Noyce and Kilby of Texas Instruments declared as inventors of microchip.
The nearly simultaneous advances of the time was primed for such an invention;
Killbys humility when getting Nobel Prize: when I hear that kind of thing it reminds me of what the beaver told the rabbit as they stood at the base of Hoover Dam: No, I did not build it myself, but its based on an idea of mine;
One aspect of innovation is inventing new devices; another is inventing popular ways to use these devices idea TI hit upon was after radio pocket calculators;
Pattern for electronic devices: every year things got cheaper, smaller, faster, more powerful. Computer and microchip industry growing together same happened half a century earlier when auto industry and oil industry was growing together. There is key lesson to innovation: understand which industries are symbiotic so that you can capitalize on how they will spur each other on.
Cramming more components onto integrated circuits
Moores law remained true for 50 or so years creating one of the greatest bursts of innovation and wealth in human history;
Low price for microchips would stimulate demand, high-volume production, and economies of scale that would turn Moores law into reality;
When Noyce called Arthur Rock who had put together the financing deal that launched Fairchild Semiconductor Rock asked what took you so long?
Arthur Rock had helped to build something that was destined to be almost as important to the digital age as the microchip: venture capital he was more into people than their ideas and the thing they were doing personalities were making him to make decision. Stanfords provost Fred Terman seeking ties with technology boom was helping Rock in understanding electronics with his professors.
Innovations come in a variety of guises. There arose Intel innovation that had almost as of much of an impact on the digital age as microchip. It was invention of a corporate culture and management style that was antithesis of the hierarchical organization of East Coast companies.
Already Dave Packard understood it was good to give his workers flexible hours and plenty of leeway in determining how to accomplish their objectives.
Grove of Intel felt honest confrontation was not only a managerial duty but one of lifes invigorating spices
Noyce when drew organizational chart for an employee he draw X in the center and than other X around it saying the X was employee.
It was culture of meritocracy; it was not corporation it was congregation;
Andy grove brutal honesty, clear focus, and e demanding drive for excellence.
Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only paranoid survive.
Name Silicon Valley started with Dan Hoefler of Electronic News in 1971
Like the Bushnell of Atari many entrepreneurs had no shame about distorting reality in order to motivate people.
Innovation requires having at least three things: a great idea, the engineering talent to execute it, and the business savvy to turn it into a successful product.
A nation which depends upon others for its new basic scientific knowledge will be slow in its industrial progress and weak in its competitive position in world trade.
Triangular relationship between government, industry and academia;
Licklider father of internet as such decentralized to make it less vulnerable against attacks;
Most true geniuses kepler, newton, Einstein, steve jobs have instinct for simplicity;
Xerox PARC- the best way to predict the future is to invent it;
Homebrew Computer Club started on 5.3.1975 Menlo Park Garage
Public awareness crucial for innovation
Hobbyists paying for altair sending checks in a town they can not pronounce that how much they wanted it;
Gates was nerd before the term was invented;
Computer terminal was for gates what a toy compass was to baby Einstein;
Gates wanted to price the product so low that computer producers should never think of having their own software;
Bushnell telling Jobs: pretend to be completely in control and people will assume you are;
Dan Bricklin and VisiCalc spreadsheet helped popularize Apple;
IBM could have everything Microsoft made although they did not make anything yet-as said by Gates
Gates in fact our tagline in our ad had been we set the standard but when we did in fact set the standard our anti-trust lawyers told us to get rid of that. Its one of those things you can use only when its not true.
Greatest innovations would come not from the people who created breakthroughs but who applied them usefully.
Conception is just first step what matters is execution;
In 1981 Apple had revenues 334 mln $ Microsoft 15 mln$;
Torvalds felt he was following in the footsteps of centuries of scientists and other academics who built their work on the foundations of others. I also wanted feedback okay and praise. It did not make sense to charge people who could potentially help improve my work.
The tradition of forming voluntary associations, found in all societies, was especially strong in early America.
Everybody esp hackers want to impress the peers, improve their reputation, elevate their social status open source programming is giving them that chance
According to Wales the best and most effective way to lead is by letting people do things because they want to do them not because you want them to.
But to Stallman your motivation was also important ultimate purist;
Windows and Mac, UNIX and Linux, iOS and Android a variety of approaches competed over decades spurring each other on and providing a check against any one model becoming so dominant that it stifled innovation;
Internet a federal project funded by public money initially that paid of overwhelmingly.
Limitations of what you could do with a computer was just limitations of your imaginations;
Even about Oxford Tim Berners Lee said that they did not have that same ripe community and cultural mix that was at the Homebrew and in Silicon Valley;
WWW Lee wanted creative space like sandpit;
Andreessen of Mosaic knew one of the secrets of digital-age entrepreneurs: he fanatically heeded user feedback and spent time on internet newsgroups soaking up suggestions and complaints;
Andreessen said bitcoin back in 1990s would be better;
To get people on your blog : stay casual, get personal, be provocative.
Connecting to community is one of the basic desires that drive the digital world;
Wikipedia imagine a wall where it was easier to remove graffiti than add it; - result the greatest collaborative knowledge project in history; there is something primordial in it wikipedians calling it wiki-crack;
Page wanted to avoid be like Tesla looking for funding; leadershape-encouraged students to hav healthy disregard for the impossible.
Page wanted to be like professor who has one foot in industry and wants to do crazy stuff thats world-breaking. Stanford led the way as an incubator also among companies wpawned by Stanford were Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, Yahoo!, and Sun Microsystems then Google.
Page and Brin said going to Montessori school as a more important factor I think it was part of that training of not following rules and orders and being self-motivated, questioning whats going on in the world and doing things a little bit differently.
Both Brin and Page were rejected by MIT
Page had a dream on what if he could download whole web he added you have to be a little silly about the goals you are going to set; - he called the project backrub;
According to Page user is never wrong that what they told him at AltaVista that he was doing it all wrong;
Google is playing with googol but googol.com was taken and the guy refused to sell;
The guy that did something similar and than left to China and founded Baidu Yanhong Li
Stanford not only permitted students to work on commercial endeavors it encouraged and facilitated it. There was even an office to assist with the patenting process and licensing arrangements.
Bechtolsheim: other web sites took a good chunk of venture funding and spent it on advertising, this was opposite approach. Build something of value and deliver a service compelling enough that people would just use it.
Brin: process might seem automated but in terms of how much human input goes into the final product, there are millions of people who spend time designing their webpages, determining who to link to and how, and that human element goes into it.
Microchips allowed computers to become small enough to be personal appliances, and packet-switched networks allowed them to be connected as nodes on a web;
HAL of 2001 remains as mirage, always about twenty years away;
Computers today are brilliant idiots. IBM research director
Gates: eventually well be able to sequence the human genome and replicate how nature did intelligence in a carbon-based system;
The strategy of combining computer and human capabilities, of creating a human-computer symbiosis, turned out to be more fruitful that the pursuit of machines that could think on their own;
Future might belong to people who can best partner and collaborate with computers;
Creativity is collaborative process. Innovation comes from teams more often from the lightbulb moments of lone geniuses.
The most productive teams were those that brought together people with a wide array of specialties.
Another lesson of digital-age innovation is that, now as in the past, physical proximity is beneficial.
Marissa Mayer: people are more collaborative and innovative when they’re together;
Jobs designed Pixar HQ over ways to structure the atrium, and even to locate the bathrooms so that it encourages random encounters;
Complementary styles of leadership one of the keys to success;
Talented federal bureaucrats not always oxymoron - found the ways to fund their ideas.
Digital theorists and hackers often disparage this approach but a private enterprise system that financially rewarded invention was a component of a system that led to breathtaking innovation in transistors, chips, computers, phones, devices and Web services;
Innovators are product people not salesman
The innovation will come from spiritual heirs of Ada Lovelace, creators who can flourish where the arts intersect with the sciences and who have rebellious sense of wonder that opens them to the beauty of both.
Rating: 5
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