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And as I understand it loosely based on the fantastic and seminal book Soul of a New Machine. I had a great EM once who said I need to read it because nothing
by IBCNU 8mo ago
And as I understand it loosely based on the fantastic and seminal book Soul of a New Machine.
I had a great EM once who said I need to read it because nothing has changed in 40 years, and I keep a copy on my desk.
Touching as well, as it's on Joe MacMillan's desk in the final scene of third season.
What's so great about it is:
- mushroom theory of management works
- trust new graduates and juniors to win by not understanding the possible
- throw all the corporate bs away, just build
- competing teams (skunk-works, vs roadmap team) works
- real innovation is built by tinkerers, from the ground up, not top down
as a startup weirdo in the age of AI, who pines for the golden era (as they call it the golden prarie) i highly recommend this show!
- LambdaComplex 8mo agoYou just reminded me that I got about halfway through Soul of a New Machine. Maybe I'll pick it back up this week.
- unmole 8mo ago> And as I understand it loosely based on the fantastic and seminal book Soul of a New Machine. I've only watched the first season and really don't see the link to Soul of a New Machine.
- tptacek 8mo agoSeason 1 is Soul of a New Machine-ish, but about personal computing, not minicomputers, and is set in Texas. Season 2 is roughly about BBSs and Compuserve, and still in Texas. Season 3 is about the early commercial Internet, same characters, SFBA. Season 4 is about the Yahoo era of the Internet and about venture capital, also SFBA.
- ai_critic 8mo agoThe problem with it is that it is ahistorical enough in the tech that some things just don't work. The show tackles stuff about like a decade before it was actually relevant in market, and that has subtle problems that give the business stuff an uncanny-valley feel. Still a fun drama though.
- deaddodo 8mo agoYeah, agreed. Watching it as a drama, it’s fun. Watching it with any perspective on tech history it gets a little cringy. The first season is semi-accurate if you just replace Compaq with their company. But it quickly goes off the rails.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 8mo agoI lost interest in the second season. S1 was great, though.
- tptacek 8mo agoS2 is the weakest season, and S1 isn't the strongest.
- _boffin_ 8mo ago[flagged]
- SquareWheel 8mo agoMany people will likely be watching this show for the first time based on this thread. Please don't spoil major plot events for them.
- _boffin_ 8mo agoThis thread is already filled with spoilers, so it feels odd that you're singling mine out and especially given how long the show's been out.
- icedchai 8mo agoS2 was super fun though. The BBS period brought back nostalgia.
- cestith 8mo ago
- vel0city 8mo agoSeason 1 feels like its connecting back to Compaq, which made a competitor to IBM's PC platform. Founded by previous TI employees, reverse engineered IBM's BIOS, etc.
- EarlKing 8mo agoCorrection: Season 2 is roughly about BBSs and QuantumLink (insofar as Mutiny is QuantumLink, anyway). Season 3 can be roughly summarized as "LOL, Norton".
- arscan 8mo agoMy father was an unnamed DG marketing executive in the book, who joked that his greatest career regret was asking Kidder to be unnamed in case the book wasn’t any good (it won Kidder the Pulitzer). I’ve been meaning to go through his old notebooks, as he took detailed notes on everything, to see if there is anything left from that era.
- IBCNU 8mo agoamazing lore!
- acomjean 8mo agoDG = data general a “large” computer company in Westboro mass. My mom worked there doing internationaliztion. Soul of a new machine is a fantastic book. About DG going up against DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) and their Vax machines.
- randrus 8mo agoI joined DG in their last days, largely due to kidders book. Also, I really liked DG/UX, for reasons I no longer recall.
- myself248 8mo ago> I’ve been meaning to go through his old notebooks, as he took detailed notes on everything, to see if there is anything left from that era. Please do! Ephemera like that can tell more sides of the story that didn't make it into the book, for whatever reason.
- arscan 8mo agoI got the sense that Kidders side was approximately equal to my father’s side, as my father said he provided a lot of information to the author through interviews and was happy with the account that ended up in the book. I’ll see what I can find though. I ended up working for the lead of the competing team within DG (whose product lost to the book’s protagonist) for many years right after college at a different company he founded. I suspect he has a slightly different perspective on the whole thing, but I never asked. Sadly my father and many of his contemporaries are no longer with us. But I’m really happy that this book exists as a durable & accurate snapshot of the period. The computer history museum also has a wonderful collection of interviews worth checking out, which includes several of the staff from DG [1] 1. https://computerhistory.org/oral-histories/ https://computerhistory.org/oral-histories/