Customer Reviews

How We Got Here : A Slightly Irreverent History of Technology and Markets

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In his last book, "Running Money" Andy Kessler underscored his arguments with breezy historical accounts that demonstrated the quirks of history and what made the industrial revolution go. "How We Got Here" is a book length version of that history and pulls it more fully what has been happening to intellectual property and capital markets during the past decade.

Kessler tells these stories because he wants his readers to understand the importance of intellectual property, of scaling those ideas to serve the needs of large populations, and of free flowing capital markets to find and support the best ideas. A by-product of these is lower prices for everyone, which leads to an increased standard of living. The author notes that he wishes he had been taught these things as a young man, and I agree that every young person (and everyone else, for that matter) will be better off taking these ideas into their bones. Why? Because we human beings don't always understand specific events all that well. We need broader principles to see our local life as part of a larger whole and the principles that are governing what is happening. Our untrained instincts are quite bad in assessing statistical outcomes (hence the thriving business of casinos).

This is a very entertaining read. It is similar to James Burke's famous "Connections", but this actually has a more focused purpose that Mr. Burke's wonderful vignettes. Kessler is strongest at the end when he is telling about the development of our computer based world because he is talking from his personal experience. Not only does he bring the world of Wall Street into sharp focus, he demonstrates the role of the military in funding the development the networks we use everyday.

For me, the thing I would hope readers would take away from this book is how unpredictable the future is and how things come along that confound all experts, bureaucrats (whether private or public), and projections. Industries are born, they grow, and then they are killed off. Just as there are no old animal homes in the wild (despite what "Bambi" has been telling folks for decades), it is the natural order for people to find work doing new things and people to be put out of work that should no longer be done. These dislocations are hard and painful, but these changes are vital in the improvement of the standard of living for everyone.

One of Kessler's complaints about our current economy is its risk averse allocation of capital into less efficient and less productive portions of the economy. It baffles him and he thinks it has more to do with out of date accounting practices than reality. For example, we don't give a fig about the trade deficit between North Dakota and California, but are losing our minds over our trade numbers with China. Yet, we don't properly account for the value of the intellectual capital we send to China that gets put into the products they ship back here. In fact, the value of that intellectual capital is likely the most profitable aspect of the product and yet our accounting assigns all that value to China incorrectly.

The more widely this book is read the better off we will be. So, please read it.

Andy Kessler tells it like it is and was. This book is one of the most enlightening and entertaining books on the history of technology. But more importantly he combines technology and finance - you get a much more clear understanding of why and how things evolved. It is a must read for anybody interested in how the world works, and how it might evolve in the future.

I was pleasantly surprised that I learned some things I didn't know about the history of the industrial revolution and the computer revolution. That is saying something, since I have read a great deal of history about the industrial revolution and I participated in the computer revolution besides reading a lot about it. Andy Kessler makes all these details interesting and relevant, including not well known facts and connections.

Kessler has a unique and insightful perspective on finance which he includes as a crucial part of the story. I have seen interesting technology stories or interesting financial stories, but to put them together gives us a unique and valuable non-PC narrative.

This is a nice easy read. Like a decent magazine article it will provide a quick overview about a half and inch deep, fully of snappy lines to keep things moving.

But also like a decent magazine article, the reader wont actually LEARN a heck of a lot. Its more for entertainment.

For those really interested in learning the interaction between technology, Wall Street, and investments I would highly recommend 2 books. In fact, I would recommend them together.

1) Frenzy : Bubbles, Busts, and How to Come Out Ahead
by Carl Haacke.

Frenzy is amazing. It weaves interviews with compelling examples and just enough data to be solid but not enough to overwhelm the non-expert. Its full of big picture and little picture insights.

2) Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages
by Carlota Perez

This books is a much heavier read and more academic-- but still worth it for those who can handle it. It provides a good macro picture for the whole business.

There is a tendency by people today to believe that IT revolution of the last couple of decades is without precedence. Kessler's history shows that entrepreneurs during the industrial revolution made productivity gains that would embarrass today's IT industry. (Eli Whitney's cotton gin produced a factor of 50 productivity gain!)

"How We Got Here" is an short and entertaining history of the industrial revolution. I think that most people have learned about the industrial revolution in a piecemeal fashion without really understanding what it was and how it impacted society. By integrating technology, markets, finance, etc., Kessler's book does a good job of describing the revolution and showing how it changed society.

This book is a must for anyone who thinks the IT industry in the 1990s was an anomaly. The revolution will continue in the 21th century, although the technology and key applications will be different.

Kessler has the unique ability to tie the history of finance, technology, and Wall Street shenanigans into a great tale. This book would make a great introductory textbook for highschool and college students about "How We Got There". The book is a fun read, and I learned a great deal about history. The underlying cautionary tale is to remember nothing is new, history just repeats itself; the same mistakes about "this time it is different" occur every time a new technology emerges.

I read Kessler's two previous books and loved them. They gave an inside account of some of recent business history's more noteable events. This book was rather different. It is a Cliff Notes version of the history of business innovation. As such, it is an informative jumping off point for anyone interested in taking a deeper look at the history of technology. It is written in an informal style as is quite accessible to the non-engineer.

Where this book falls down in comparison to Kessler's other books is in the bringing together of disparate themes to help the reader form a coherent picture of an event or process. Kessler could have done a better job of tying this all up for the reader. All in all an entertaining read, worth the effort.

Though as a history buff I was mostly aware of everything gone over in this book it is an excellent primer for those who don't know much of the history of steam engines, electricity and the computer age. The most interesting aspect of the book for me was the tie-in to the financial world and the relation of the steam boom to the dot-com boom. Tied in witticisms make the book a pleasure to read even for people who might find the topic a bit of a bore. Give it a read, it's worth the time even if you know the history already.

Mr. Kessler has written an insightful, fun story that helps you understand technology, markets and domination. His writing style is conversational and a delight to read. Many parallels with the present become clear as you work your way through the events in history. A must read - especially for business and history nuts.

Fascinating story about the history of technology and capital markets. More fun than most books I've read, it's like riding a roller-coaster through history.

By giving us a detailed account of how these areas are interwoven, Kessler also looks to the future - showing how important it is for America (and the world) to make smart decisions that will lead to further advances.

Chris "SparkGuy" Downie
SparkPeople Founder & CEO

I had a hard time putting this book down after I started reading it. There was one fact after another concerning major technological leaps, how they were manipulated by influential people of their day. and how they subsequently affected the lives of everyone.

The book is very easy to read, which is amazing considering the vast subject coverage. The author has a great sense of humor and a great grasp of history.

This is a must-read for anyone who wants to peer into the future by examining the past.