Reddit reviews Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date

Yeah read Accidental Empires and see really what Bill Gates did. Genius but not an inventor in IMHO. The BASIC interpreter start got the company started was a port not invented. DOS was bought not invented. Windows was copied. And so on...

I would also argue that Gates and Jobs are more alike than different. They were visionaries that could recognize technology see its market potential before most others. Neither invented they just improved and packaged technology better than the actual inventors

See this depthhub post for a good starting point.

Basically, as a businessman, Bill Gates and Microsoft has a history of, at the very least, borderline "anti-competitive" behavior going back to the earliest days of the computer industry (pre-internet)

Edit: If you prefer video, you might be want to check out this brief video segment. This is from Richard X. Cringely's 90s PBS documentary series on the early history of the Internet, Nerds 2.0.1.

Cringely's earlier book Accidental Empires:How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date is also a decent introduction to the pre-Internet history of Silicon Valley. It was also made into a very good PBS documentary series.

A great book on the history and origins (model trains?! Yup!) of the microcomputer revolution is Accidental Empires by Robert X. Cringely. I highly recommend it.

I could be wrong but I believe this is from Bob Cringely's fantastic PBS special Triumph of the Nerds

He also wrote a book called Accidental Empires which is as equally fantastic. Bob, not his real name, was something like employee #13 at Apple and wrote for Infoworld for many years and was able to sit down and talk with all the big players in a very candid manner.

Definitely this. And look what I found.

Followed by Nerds 2.0.

Also, I highly recommend the book: Accidental Empires.

Reading all of these three books will provide a very well-rounded over-view of these (and many other) events. They are all very quick reads and quite fascinating:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_19/182-4895270-7226860?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=fumbling%20the%20future&sprefix=fumbling+the+future%2Caps%2C410

http://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Empires-Silicon-Millions-Competition/dp/0887308554/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410918861&sr=1-1&keywords=accidental+empires

http://www.amazon.com/Insanely-Great-Macintosh-Computer-Everything/dp/0140291776/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410918880&sr=1-1&keywords=insanely+great

Another recommended book is "Accidental Empires" by Robert X. Cringely. IMO, it's by far the best and most entertaining book about the early PC industry.

Amusingly mirrors (with the "moral" of the story reversed) the opening anecdote of the chapter about Microsoft in Cringely's Accidental Empires, probably equally apocryphal, but at least with the pedigree of being printed 25 years ago in a real book by an author who at least claimed to have done contemporary research.

> William H. Gates III stood in the checkout line at an all-night convenience store near his home in the Laurelhurst section of Seattle. It was about midnight, and he was holding a carton of butter pecan ice cream. The line inched forward, and eventually it was his turn to pay. He put some money on the counter, along with the ice cream, and then began to search his pockets.
>
> "I've got 50-cents-off coupon here somewhere," he said, giving up on his pants pockets and moving up to search the pockets of his plaid shirt.
>
> The clerk waited, the ice cream melted, the other customers, standing in line with their root beer Slurpies and six-packs of beer, fumed as Gates searched in vain for the coupon.
>
> "Here," said the next shopper in line, throwing down two quarters.
>
> Gates took the money.
>
> "Pay me back when you earn your first million," the 7-11 philanthropist called as Gates and his ice cream faded into the night.
>
> The shoppers just shook their heads. They all knew it was Bill Gates, who on that night in 1990 was approximately a three billion dollar man.
>
> I figure there's some real information in this story of Bill Gates and the ice cream. He took the money. What kind of person is this? What kind of person wouldn't dig his own 50 cents out and pay for the ice cream? A person who didn't have the money? Bill Gates has the money. A starving person? Bill Gates has never starved. Some paranoid schizophrenics would have taken the money (some wouldn't, too), but I've heard no claims that Bill Gates is mentally ill. And a kid might take the money -- some bright but poorly socialized kid under, say, the age of 9.
>
> Bingo.

Think you mean "Triumph of the Nerds" which is the documentary based on the book Accidental Empires, How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date written by Robert Cringely. A good read, IMO. (Revenge of the Nerds was a movie with Lewis, Gilbert and Booger!)
Also worth a read are: Dealers of Lightning, Xerox parc and the Dawn of the Computer Age by Michael Hiltzik; Go To by Steve Lohr; and Hard Drive, Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by Wallace & Erickson

The Curve of Binding Energy: A Journey into the Awesome and Alarming World of Theodore B. Taylor
by John McPHee

Assassination Vacation
by Sarah Vowell

Public Therapy Buses, Information Specialty Bums, Solar Cook-A-Mats and Other Visions of the 21st Century
by Steven M. Johnson

Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date
by Robert X. Cringley

Tog on Interface
by Bruce Tognazzini

For those who would like a good read, Mr. Cringley based Triumph of the Nerds on his own book, Accidental Empires.

And both are far superior to the heavily-dramatized Pirates of Silicon Valley.

I know it isn't exactly what you are looking for, but I'd recommend:

http://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Empires-Silicon-Millions-Competition/dp/0887308554

If you are interested in computer history.

Read Accidental Empires