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Staff Pick: Forbes Greatest Technology Stories

Staff’s Name: Mohammad Faridzuan bin Abd Rahman
Position: Executive, Communications & Publications 
Book Title: Forbes Greatest Technology Stories 
Author: Jeffrey Young 
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 
Year of Publication: 1998 
Language: English 

Forbes Greatest Technology Stories by Jeffrey Young


Official Synopsis: 

In the tradition of the international bestseller Forbes Greatest Business Stories of All Time, this new, authoritative book from Forbes tells a compelling series of business tales-this time focusing on the rapid-fire technology frontier. In stories filled with human drama and high-tech excitement, Forbes Greatest Technology Stories takes you inside today’s Digital Age business empires and introduces you to the dreamers and schemers, visionaries and moguls, and entrepreneurs and inventors who built them.  


The past half century has been a time of unparalleled technological innovation. The sheer power and mobility that technology has made available to millions of people around the world today surpasses anything we could have dreamed of even fifty years ago. Most historians of the high-tech revolution tend to focus on the exploits of men and women of scientific genius, invoking names such as Lovelace, Babbage, Turing, von Neuman, and Cray. But, as Forbes contributing editor Jeffrey Young shows in this fascinating account, while science may have provided the fuel, business was the engine that drove the epic shift from the Machine Age to the Digital Age.  


Beginning in 1937, with the invention of the first crude electronic calculator by a renegade physics professor at the University of Iowa, and culminating with the Internet Wars of 1998, Jeffrey Young chronicles six decades of unbridled technological innovation and business genius. Writing in a crisp, fast-paced journalistic style, he whisks readers from the Truman-era engineering labs of MIT to the virtual reaches of cyberspace, from the “wirehead” garages of Silicon Valley to the boardrooms of Microsoft, pausing along the way to demystify the technological innovations involved and the roles they played in the high-tech revolution. And he provides compelling portraits of entrepreneurs and inventors such as John Vincent Atanasoff, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Andy Grove, and Craig McCaw, as well as the little-known inventors, audacious also-rans, and magnificent failures whose pioneering efforts gave birth to the Digital Age.  


An enthralling account of the high-tech revolution as seen from a business perspective; Forbes Greatest Technology Stories is a must-read for every business professional. 


Comments: 

I like solving problems, Commander. And Enigma is the most difficult problem in the world.” 
– Alan Turing, The Imitation Game (2014) 


The quote above is from the Alan Turing’s biopic, and it might as well be the mantra for the book, “Forbes Greatest Technology Stories.”  While Turing’s story itself was not featured, his spirit of invention is present in every anecdote shared in this book. When faced with difficulties, these visionaries did not back down from adversity but instead overcame them, resulting in world-changing inventions that are still being in use to this very day. 


One such story was the invention of the modern-day transistors by William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain. In December 1947, Bardeen had been sceptical of the entire concept of electron behaviour within a semiconductor. Together with his friend Brattain, they fashioned an apparatus to prove their alternative theory and found that when the contact points are placed very close to each other, a small positive current can multiply by up to 90 times. Then it was up to Bardeen and Shockley to determine the finer calculations and mechanics of their invention; the point-contact transistor. On December 23, 1947, a successful demonstration of their invention was conducted in front of managers of R&D firm Bell Labs; Bardeen and Brattain were given credit for the semiconductor, but not Shockley. Not willing to stand idly by, Shockley dug deep into his calculations and found a better way for transistors to work and called his concept the junction transistor. Two years later, Shockley successfully demonstrated his device at Bell Labs and finally got the credit he deserved. With the two patents on transistors, Bell Labs was set to chart the course of the electronics age. Transistors was a paramount invention; it is a basic component of all electronics today.  

A replica of the first point-contact transistor by John Bardeen and Walter Brattain.


The two main lessons I learned from the above anecdote is 1) To never be afraid to ask questions and challenge the norm. What may be correct today may not be correct tomorrow, like how Bardeen and Brattain remained sceptical about the behaviour of electron, which led to their invention. 2) To never give up in the face of adversity, and face it head on. Had Shockley remained feeling defeated and upset, he would never have found a more efficient way for transistors to work, and the electronics age would have been pushed back years if not decades. 


The biggest thing that I learned from this book, however, is to better appreciate the inventions and discoveries of those who came before us, and to not take the things we enjoy today for granted. With the history and anecdotes on inventions, this book is a great fast-paced read on the human spirit of discovery.  


Excerpts: 


“While he kept the project alive, after its introduction, Intel temporarily abandoned its development efforts in microprocessors. Nine months later, Faggin convinced his boss, Vadesz, to let him build an improved processor, using all the knowledge he had gained on the first two. He was given the go-ahead. 


Faggin’s team had gathered momentum and size during 1973. With close to 80 people in the group, he and Shima improved the microprocessor wisely, by incorporating feedback from their customers. Faggin had spent months traveling to customer sites and asking questions about his product. Subsequently, he and Shima pored over new circuit designs. Hoff even got back into the process and was instrumental in improving and streamlining the instruction set. By April 1974, they had a product ready for release. Called the 8080, it was another 8-bit microprocessor, but it featured a much better instruction set and was 10 times faster than its predecessor. In fact, the design and execution of the chip was so elegant that it remains the basic architecture for Intel’s family of microprocessors to this day (in 1998). Finally, the engineers had a chip worthy of their efforts.” 

Chapter 5, Chips: Integrated Circuits and Microprocessors 


“Mcgowan was fascinated by the project. This was something he could get excited about. He imagined going head-to-head with AT&T, one of the largest companies in the United States. He researched the situation and found that many computer companies were looking for reliable alternative data circuits, and other companies were already starting to talk about setting up their own networks similar to Goeken’s. This was sounding better and better to McGowan, and the dispatch radio part seemed less valuable than an alternative long-distance network. McGowan even had a vision for how to expand Goeken’s kernel of a business plan. He would develop local versions of the St. Louis-to-Chicago microwave run for 16 other key routes across the United States.” 

Chapter 10, Airwaves: MCI & Cell Phones


The book ‘Forbes Greatest Technology Stories’ is available at the Perdana Library. If you are interested in reading or borrowing the book, visit our library in Putrajaya or contact us at 03-88858961 (Library Counter). 

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