The Innovators

Why it’s on the list: Walter Isaacson’s group biography of the digital revolution — collaboration, not lone genius, as the engine of innovation.

Where I saw it: Kyle sampled this book and saved highlights via Readwise into Roam — captured here (not a full read).

Connections

• Walter Isaacson
• Leonardo Da Vinci
• The Idea Factory
• Bundling
• Unbundling

Highlights

Partial highlights captured via Readwise — Kyle sampled this book; not a full read.

• most of the innovations of the digital age were done collaboratively.
• The tale of their teamwork is important because we don’t often focus on how central that skill is to innovation.
• For the birth of the digital age, this included a research ecosystem that was nurtured by government spending and managed by a military-industrial-academic collaboration. Intersecting with that was a loose alliance of community organizers, communal-minded hippies, do-it-yourself hobbyists, and homebrew hackers, most of whom were suspicious of centralized authority.

  Kyle: Technology has been a story of decentralized innovation and centralized power grabbing. On and off again. Bundling and unbundling.

• Thomas Carlyle declared that “the history of the world is but the biography of great men,” and Herbert Spencer responded with a theory that emphasized the role of societal forces.
• The Internet was originally built to facilitate collaboration. By contrast, personal computers, especially those meant to be used at home, were devised as tools for individual creativity.