Accidental Empires

Front Cover
Harper Collins, Sep 13, 1996 - Business & Economics - 384 pages

Computer manufacturing is--after cars, energy production and illegal drugs--the largest industry in the world, and it's one of the last great success stories in American business. Accidental Empires is the trenchant, vastly readable history of that industry, focusing as much on the astoundingly odd personalities at its core--Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mitch Kapor, etc. and the hacker culture they spawned as it does on the remarkable technology they created. Cringely reveals the manias and foibles of these men (they are always men) with deadpan hilarity and cogently demonstrates how their neuroses have shaped the computer business. But Cringely gives us much more than high-tech voyeurism and insider gossip. From the birth of the transistor to the mid-life crisis of the computer industry, he spins a sweeping, uniquely American saga of creativity and ego that is at once uproarious, shocking and inspiring.

 

Contents

CHAPTER
3
CHAPTER
18
CHAPTER THREE
33
CHAPTER FOUR
48
CHAPTER FIVE
73
CHAPTER
93
CHAPTER SEVEN
119
CHAPTER EIGHT
139
CHAPTER ELEVEN
209
CHAPTER TWELVE
230
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
247
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
269
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
297
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
317
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
336
INDEX
363

CHAPTER NINE
159
CHAPTER
182

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About the author (1996)

For eight years, Robert X. Cringely's "Notes from the Field" column appeared weekly in Info World. Currently he can be seen in the public television series Triumph of the Nerds, based on this book. A former Stanford professor and foreign correspondent, he lives in Palo Alto, California.

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