Book Review: The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

A couple years ago I read one of my favorite biographies, Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. It was a little long winded but I thought it captured the essence of Steve Jobs and was a really engaging read. As a tech enthusiast the idea of learning more about beginning of the digital revolution sounded great. And the fact that it was written by someone who I've read before made jump right in for it.

Unfortunately this was a really hard book for me to get into. I actually gave up on the book about a quarter of the way through. Isaacson spends far to much time on the onset of technology and less about the actual digital revolution. I think its great to learn about the origins but I wanted to spend far more time in the 1950's forward and less pre WWII discussion. I just found the first half of the book dry.

Sadly once the novel gets into the Bill Gates / Steve Jobs stage of the book Isaacson just blasts through it. I'm sure he didn't want to re-tread a lot of the Steve Jobs novel but skipping through some of the biggest advancements in the digital age. A lot of the digital revolution that has happened in the last fifteen years was barely even given a mention. Needless to say I had a really hard time getting into the book and once I did I think he completely missed the mark. I'd much rather have read Steve Jobs again then slogged through this one.