Walter Isaacson presents a well-researched and detailed history of
digital revolution in “The Innovators”, bringing to light the story of people
who created the computer and the internet.
The book has twelve chapters, organized in a chronological way, which is
the following:
·
Chapter 1 - “Ada, Countess of Lovelace”;
·
Chapter 2 - “The Computer”;
·
Chapter 3 - “Programming”;
·
Chapter 4 - “The Transistor”;
·
Chapter 5 - “The Microchip”;
·
Chapter 6 - “Video Games”;
·
Chapter 7 - “The Internet”;
·
Chapter 8 - “Personal Computer”;
·
Chapter 9 - “Software”;
·
Chapter 10 - “Online”;
·
Chapter 11 - “The Web”;
·
Chapter 12 - “Ada Forever”;
Starting with Ada Lovelace, daughter of the poet Lord Byron and celebrated
as a computer pioneer (“the U.S. Defense Department named its high-level
object-oriented programming language” (p.33) as Ada) – one hundred years before
technology enabling the building of the first computer -, “The Innovators”
approaches the evolution of computer from analog to digital, between other
aspects (like the needed binary system) in the second chapter.
Programming, in third chapter, was initially a subject of women because men
were too busy developing hardware and Grace Hooper, one of the most iconic of
them, was known to defend that a good programmer should have not only math
skills, but also good communication.
Chapters four and five, about transistor and microchip, presents two fundamental
innovations to the computer development: “The transistor (…) became to the
digital age what the steam was to the Industrial Revolution” (p.131). It was
with the creation of a small pocket radio by Texas Instruments that transistors
became more accessible to the consumer market, for example, and the same happened
with microchips, Texas Instruments, and the creation of a pocket calculator.
However, computers should not be only for calculating, they also should
be for fun like playing video games, and
it is about this that the sixth chapter is. Internet (chapter seven) was
created before the development of personal computers (chapter 8). “The idea of
a personal computer, one that ordinary individuals could get their hands
on and take home, was envisioned in 1945 by Vannevar Bush” (p.263).
The first steps of Microsoft (Micro from microcomputers and soft from
software), Apple and Linux are the subject of the nineth chapter. Walter
Isaacson finishes the book with two chapters (ten and eleven) related to the
Internet, about online and web respectively, before returning to the beginning
with everything: Ada Lovelace!
In what respects to the main ideas of “The Innovators”, Teamwork and
collaboration are central concepts in digital revolution, in computer and
internet development, and in the entire Isaacson’s book. “The tale of their
teamwork is important because we don’t often focus on how central that skill is
to innovation” (p.1) and to creativity. “(…) creativity is a collaborative
process. Innovation comes from teams more often than from the lightbulb moments
of lone geniuses” (p.479). Most of the advances of the computer and internet were
a result of teamwork. The Internet, for example, was originally built to
facilitate collaboration: creating, disseminating, and accessing any
information from and to anywhere.
Art and science connected enable
innovation, and a “wide array of specialties” putting together in a team is a
factor of productivity (pp.5 and 480). According to Isaacson, “Human creativity
involves values, intentions, aesthetic judgments, emotions, personal
consciousness, and a moral sense. These are what the arts and humanities teach
us – and why those realms are as valuable a part of education as science,
technology, engineering, and math.” (p.486). He goes still further in his
argument, with which I totally agree, defending that “People who love the arts
and humanities should endeavor to appreciate the beauties of math and physics,
just as Ada (Lovelace) did. Otherwise, they will be left as bystanders at the
intersection of arts and science, where most digital-age creativity will occur.”
(p.487)
Following this line, having visionaries, who have ideas, and operating
managers, who can execute them, in the same team is essential to success, something
that Simon Sinek also refers to in his book “Starting with Why”. “Visions
without execution are hallucinations” (p.481), as written by Isaacson.
Finally, and still related with collaboration (that “was not merely
among contemporaries, but also between generations” (p.480), the author identifies
three ways, all relevant to the present state of art of the digital revolution:
the first one is through government funding and coordination (the original
computers Colossus and ENIAC and ARPANET network are a result of this), the
second one is through private enterprise (like Xerox, Texas Instruments, Intel,
Google, Microsoft and Apple), and the third and last one is through “peers
freely sharing ideas and making contributions as part of a voluntary common endeavor”(Wikipedia,
Linux and Firefox are just some examples of this) (p.483).
Indeed, “The Innovators” of Walter Isaacson offers the readers a genesis
of the digital age, recovering the names, the challenges and the achievements
of all the people that together could brought us to the place and the time we
are today: the future is now and it is digital. A must read, for sure!
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