The innovators

how a group of hackers, geniuses, and geeks created the digital revolution

by Walter Isaacson

955 pages

English language

Published Dec. 31, 2015 by Large Print Press, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning.

ISBN:: 978-1-59413-885-0
OCLC Number:: 925916642

(7 reviews)

The Innovators is Walter Isaacson's revealing story of the people who created the computer and the Internet. It is also a history of the digital revolution and a guide to how innovation really happens. 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? Isaacson begins 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 …

13 editions

crabbygirl reviewed The Innovators by Walter Isaacson

Review of 'The Innovators' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

so interesting! instead of focusing on one person and their creativity and invention, this book champions the collaboration of individuals and tries to give each person his or her due. a little systematic at times (each section starting with a rambling biography of the current focus) the actual 'meat' of the book is fascinating: real chemistry sets, fiddling with resistors and circuits, entrepreneurs that made the first video games out of tv consoles - the folks who, collaboratively, created the digital age were a curious bunch that laid their physical hands on innovation long before it was hidden away in the box we know as the computer. in the same way that Cory Doctorow's Little Brother made me want to build a computer from scratch, this book makes me want to know further still about all the digital devices that have taken over our lives.