If people are interested in tech monopolies, innovation, and government, here are some great books: - The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American

If people are interested in tech monopolies, innovation, and government, here are some great books: - The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation, by John Gertner: A running theme is how AT&T was motivated to "give back" to the country to avoid anti-monopoly action by the government. I take today's talk about Google/Facebook/Apple/Amazon to be a negotiating tactic to motivate them to act similarly, although I wouldn't be surprised to see real government involvement either. - The Chip by T. R. Reid: the invention of the integrated circuit near-simultaneously by two different people/companies. - Where Wizards Stay up Late by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon: the origins of ARPANET at BBN. Two other closely-related themes in these books are: - Patents (a limited monopoly), and how the patents for both transistors and integrated circuits were licensed very freely, allowing much faster innovation. - Government spending, e.g. how the space race and arms buildup paid for the early years of IC development before they were commercially competitive with just wiring up lots of components. . . . OT, I found all these books more interesting than The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder. Although it won a Pulitzer, it never felt like any of it "mattered" in the same way. (I had never heard of the Data General Eclipse.) It just seemed like another story of engineers killing themselves with overwork.