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Ask HN: Fictional books related to startups?

23 points by mh77 17y ago

Any suggestions on fictional books about or related to startups? Fictional books related to the computer industry in general is also of interest.

Tichy 17y ago
The Deadline by Tom DeMarco jPod (not sure, too long ago that I read it)
vlorch 17y ago
microserfs
- pietro 17y ago
  That's a great book. I think it's the only startup fiction I've ever read, and it inspired me quite a deal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microserfs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microserfs
- cjbos 17y ago
  He also wrote a more recent one called JPod http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jpod http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jpod which is more about a cubicle farm environment than startup.
  - nopassrecover 17y ago
    There was a T.V. show based on that.
nanexcool 17y ago
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. http://www.amazon.com/Cryptonomicon-Neal-Stephenson/dp/0060512806/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241940820&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Cryptonomicon-Neal-Stephenson/dp/00605...
peter123 17y ago
The First 20 Million Is Always the Hardest by Po Bronson http://www.pobronson.com/index_first_20_million.htm http://www.pobronson.com/index_first_20_million.htm
SwellJoe 17y ago
Non-fiction, but the best tech startup story I know of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine
- mnemonicsloth 17y ago
  Seconded. Besides telling a familiar story in a very compelling way, Kidder has a genius for quotability: One engineer, Josh Rosen, who burned out fighting nanosecond-level timing bugs was seduced by the attraction of commune living and left to live in the country. His resignation note declared, I’m going to a commune in Vermont and will deal with no unit of time shorter than a season. Gems like this one appear about once every two pages, give or take.
ciscoriordan 17y ago
Options by Fake Steve Jobs (Dan Lyons): http://www.amazon.com/Options-Secret-Life-Steve-Parody/dp/0306815842 http://www.amazon.com/Options-Secret-Life-Steve-Parody/dp/03... Although all the parts in it that I liked were already on the blog: http://fakesteve.blogspot.com http://fakesteve.blogspot.com
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
greendestiny 17y ago
If you want something a little different, "The Truth" and "Going Postal" by Terry Pratchett both capture a sense of startupness.
trekker7 17y ago
Posted at ~1 AM in the Valley... would love for this to be bumped up during the daytime here. Then again the kinds of people who would comment are probably wide awake right now. Nonfiction, but thought Fire in the Valley was worth mentioning. Pirates of the Silicon Valley is the movie based on it. Antitrust is also good.
thwarted 17y ago
Hyperion Bay was an early WB program about a tech start up staring Mark-Paul Gosselaar. It wasn't very good though, only 17 episodes. I think I had watched only one episode all the way through. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0166044/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0166044/
wheels 17y ago
There are thousands of them. They're usually called, "the business plan."
CarolynM 17y ago
Microserfs - they start as employees and create a startup.
wallflower 17y ago
Non-fiction but I love "Showstopper" about Dave Cutler and Windows NT 1.0. There's a great little story in there about a developer's months-long struggle to draw a Window onscreen for the first time from scratch. I loved the descriptions of how they coded up everything from bare metal. As you'll see, Dave Cutler is one of those rare firebrands.
aytekin 17y ago
The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt is pretty good. It is a business fiction book, so although it is not about startups, it applies well to start ups. http://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0884270610 http://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/08... The book explains Theory of Constraints(TOC) in a novel. TOC is basically similar to profiling software, but instead of software, you profile a business. Find the bottlenecks in the system and work on them. Improving other things has very low return, and usually just waste of time. Improving bottlenecks improves the throughput of the whole system. Here are my other recommended business fiction books: http://atank.interlogy.com/blog/?p=15 http://atank.interlogy.com/blog/?p=15
alain94040 17y ago
Startup book turning into thriller with light dose of sci-fi and compelling characters: "Press Send" by John McLaren (http://www.amazon.com/Press-Send-John-McLaren/dp/0671015702 http://www.amazon.com/Press-Send-John-McLaren/dp/0671015702) To me, "Press Send" run circles around "Microserfs". Good luck finding it in the US (It's a UK book for some reason).
daveambrose 17y ago
Although not a book, I recommend watching "August" - a movie I discovered last summer on HN about the startup-scene in NYC during the boom. A fun watch for sure.
daveambrose 17y ago
Although not a book, I recommend watching "August" - a movie I discovered last summer on HN about the startup-scene in NYC during the boom. An interesting story and journey for sure.
daveambrose 17y ago
Although not a book, I recommend watching "August" - a movie I discovered last summer on HN about the startup-scene in NYC during the boom. An interesting story and journey for sure.
rg 17y ago
"hackoff.com: an historic murder mystery set in the Internet bubble and rubble", by Tom Evslin (pub. 2007). Tom is a software hacker himself and a very well known serial startup entrepreneur, with successes in comm and graphics apps (both Mac and PC) and then a huge IPO for his company ITXC during the internet bubble. His fictional murder mystery is based on his insider view of startups, both the both technical and financial sides. Go to http://hackoff.com http://hackoff.com (note that the fictional domain which is the title of the book is also a real domain to promote the book). You can read the entire book or listen to Tom read the entire book free, or receive all the text episodes by RSS or email, or receive all the audio episodes by RSS or podcast. You can order the hardback book edition from Amazon, or buy a Kindle edition.
mh77 17y ago
Thanks for all suggestions! Looking forward to some good reading this summer. I have read Microserfs and JPod. Really enjoyed both of them. Also, the TV version of JPod is not that bad.
zandorg 17y ago
Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure: Jerry Kaplan (Jerry is such a nice guy that he answered my email). Another one, though this guy did NOT reply to my email, is about a publishing (not coding) startup, Burn Rate.
paulgb 17y ago
Not fiction, but I'm enjoying "What the Dormouse Said: How 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer"
jpd 17y ago
Discworld's Going Postal and Making Money by Terry Pratchett are worth checking out. They are sort-of about startups; the main character has to re-organize the Post Office and the Banking system.
oscardelben 17y ago
Dreaming in code is a book about the startup life of the Chandler project.
philelly 17y ago
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/bubblecity1 http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/bubblecity1
wallflower 17y ago
This just occurred to me: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

23 points by mh77 17y ago

Any suggestions on fictional books about or related to startups? Fictional books related to the computer industry in general is also of interest.

Tichy 17y ago

The Deadline by Tom DeMarco jPod (not sure, too long ago that I read it)

vlorch 17y ago

microserfs

pietro 17y ago
That's a great book. I think it's the only startup fiction I've ever read, and it inspired me quite a deal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microserfs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microserfs
cjbos 17y ago
He also wrote a more recent one called JPod http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jpod http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jpod which is more about a cubicle farm environment than startup.
- nopassrecover 17y ago
  There was a T.V. show based on that.

nanexcool 17y ago

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. http://www.amazon.com/Cryptonomicon-Neal-Stephenson/dp/0060512806/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241940820&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Cryptonomicon-Neal-Stephenson/dp/00605...

peter123 17y ago

The First 20 Million Is Always the Hardest by Po Bronson http://www.pobronson.com/index_first_20_million.htm http://www.pobronson.com/index_first_20_million.htm

SwellJoe 17y ago

Non-fiction, but the best tech startup story I know of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine

mnemonicsloth 17y ago
Seconded. Besides telling a familiar story in a very compelling way, Kidder has a genius for quotability: One engineer, Josh Rosen, who burned out fighting nanosecond-level timing bugs was seduced by the attraction of commune living and left to live in the country. His resignation note declared, I’m going to a commune in Vermont and will deal with no unit of time shorter than a season. Gems like this one appear about once every two pages, give or take.

ciscoriordan 17y ago

Options by Fake Steve Jobs (Dan Lyons): http://www.amazon.com/Options-Secret-Life-Steve-Parody/dp/0306815842 http://www.amazon.com/Options-Secret-Life-Steve-Parody/dp/03... Although all the parts in it that I liked were already on the blog: http://fakesteve.blogspot.com http://fakesteve.blogspot.com

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

greendestiny 17y ago

If you want something a little different, "The Truth" and "Going Postal" by Terry Pratchett both capture a sense of startupness.

trekker7 17y ago

Posted at ~1 AM in the Valley... would love for this to be bumped up during the daytime here. Then again the kinds of people who would comment are probably wide awake right now. Nonfiction, but thought Fire in the Valley was worth mentioning. Pirates of the Silicon Valley is the movie based on it. Antitrust is also good.

thwarted 17y ago

Hyperion Bay was an early WB program about a tech start up staring Mark-Paul Gosselaar. It wasn't very good though, only 17 episodes. I think I had watched only one episode all the way through. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0166044/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0166044/

wheels 17y ago

There are thousands of them. They're usually called, "the business plan."

CarolynM 17y ago

Microserfs - they start as employees and create a startup.

wallflower 17y ago

Non-fiction but I love "Showstopper" about Dave Cutler and Windows NT 1.0. There's a great little story in there about a developer's months-long struggle to draw a Window onscreen for the first time from scratch. I loved the descriptions of how they coded up everything from bare metal. As you'll see, Dave Cutler is one of those rare firebrands.

aytekin 17y ago

The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt is pretty good. It is a business fiction book, so although it is not about startups, it applies well to start ups. http://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0884270610 http://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/08... The book explains Theory of Constraints(TOC) in a novel. TOC is basically similar to profiling software, but instead of software, you profile a business. Find the bottlenecks in the system and work on them. Improving other things has very low return, and usually just waste of time. Improving bottlenecks improves the throughput of the whole system. Here are my other recommended business fiction books: http://atank.interlogy.com/blog/?p=15 http://atank.interlogy.com/blog/?p=15

alain94040 17y ago

Startup book turning into thriller with light dose of sci-fi and compelling characters: "Press Send" by John McLaren (http://www.amazon.com/Press-Send-John-McLaren/dp/0671015702 http://www.amazon.com/Press-Send-John-McLaren/dp/0671015702) To me, "Press Send" run circles around "Microserfs". Good luck finding it in the US (It's a UK book for some reason).

daveambrose 17y ago

Although not a book, I recommend watching "August" - a movie I discovered last summer on HN about the startup-scene in NYC during the boom. A fun watch for sure.

daveambrose 17y ago

Although not a book, I recommend watching "August" - a movie I discovered last summer on HN about the startup-scene in NYC during the boom. An interesting story and journey for sure.

daveambrose 17y ago

Although not a book, I recommend watching "August" - a movie I discovered last summer on HN about the startup-scene in NYC during the boom. An interesting story and journey for sure.

rg 17y ago

"hackoff.com: an historic murder mystery set in the Internet bubble and rubble", by Tom Evslin (pub. 2007). Tom is a software hacker himself and a very well known serial startup entrepreneur, with successes in comm and graphics apps (both Mac and PC) and then a huge IPO for his company ITXC during the internet bubble. His fictional murder mystery is based on his insider view of startups, both the both technical and financial sides. Go to http://hackoff.com http://hackoff.com (note that the fictional domain which is the title of the book is also a real domain to promote the book). You can read the entire book or listen to Tom read the entire book free, or receive all the text episodes by RSS or email, or receive all the audio episodes by RSS or podcast. You can order the hardback book edition from Amazon, or buy a Kindle edition.

mh77 17y ago

Thanks for all suggestions! Looking forward to some good reading this summer. I have read Microserfs and JPod. Really enjoyed both of them. Also, the TV version of JPod is not that bad.

zandorg 17y ago

Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure: Jerry Kaplan (Jerry is such a nice guy that he answered my email). Another one, though this guy did NOT reply to my email, is about a publishing (not coding) startup, Burn Rate.

paulgb 17y ago

Not fiction, but I'm enjoying "What the Dormouse Said: How 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer"

jpd 17y ago

Discworld's Going Postal and Making Money by Terry Pratchett are worth checking out. They are sort-of about startups; the main character has to re-organize the Post Office and the Banking system.

oscardelben 17y ago

Dreaming in code is a book about the startup life of the Chandler project.

philelly 17y ago

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/bubblecity1 http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/bubblecity1

wallflower 17y ago

This just occurred to me: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley