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Discussion on: I love coding history books. Here are some I'd recommend.

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Fabian Holzer • Edited

A few month ago, I've read "Troublemakers: Silicon Valley's Coming of Age" by Leslie Berlin, which I found very enjoyable.

It covers the time from the late 1960es to the mid-80es by following seven exemplary, maybe a bit lesser known, biographies. These stories also lay out quite demonstrative how the eco-system of onw industry was able to beget a new industry (i.e. semiconductors->personal computing->software) and also sheds some light on the bio-tech industry, which also has strong roots in the bay area.

For me, it was quite an eye-opener to follow Mike Markkula's story. In a nutshell: he got so wealthy from his stock options from Fairchild and Intel that he retired in his early thirties, he got bored from retirement, started consulting, initially for one day a week, a little start-up called Apple, where he subsequently became the first major investor and its third employee - he is much lesser known than the two Steves (I've never heard of the name before the book, but then again, I'm ostentatively not an Apple fanboy), but chances are Apple wouldn't have survived its early days without him.