Nerds 2.0.1 [Hardcover]

Stephen Segaller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1998

The companion to the documentary series premiering on PBS in November 1998. A romp through the development of the "Information Superhighway" from the people who brought you "Triumph of the Nerds." Nerds 2.0.1 is the first light-hearted but comprehensive account of how the Internet developed from a medium for academic geeks, hackers, and policy wonks into a billion-dollar vehicle for communication and commerce. The brand names Microsoft, Apple, Netscape, Intel, Novell, AOL, 3Com, Java, Sun, Amazon, Yahoo!, and Excite are known worldwide, but for every one of these success stories lie a multitude of wrecked businesses by the side of the road.

Based on four years of research and interviews with the founders of the successful companies who started in their parents' garages with credit card advances and with the venture capitalists who supported them, as well as with the unlucky engineers who missed the patent deadlines and key phone calls, Stephen Segaller tells the human story behind the Internet. From the start of the Pentagon's ARPAnet in the 1960s, through the work of physicist Tim Berners-Lee and a young programmer named Marc Andreessen (who wrote the code for the Internet browser "Mosaic") on to the bazillionaires and their companies today, Nerds is a warm and engaging tale of billionaires rising from the development of a communications medium that one in three Americans uses but nobody owns.

The companion documentary series is hosted by the author of the best-selling Accidental Empires: How The Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet presents the development of the Web as a product of colliding, dualistic forces: the individuality of the personal computer and the universality of a global network. Along the way, other complementary opposites arise, such as the intersection of the "computer lib" hippie hacker and the IBM or Pentagon bureaucrat. The biographies of these visionaries, and the magnificent changes their ideas induced, make Nerds 2.0.1 compelling reading.

Nerds 2.0.1 is a unique computer-history book, in that it is really a history of networking. Author Stephen Segaller covers all the current heavy hitters of the technology industry in depth: Novell, 3Com, and Cisco. In particular, the story of the creation of Cisco--and the ousting of the original founders by the sponsoring venture capitalist--shows the high-level stakes and intrigue this billionaire world holds. Segaller also chronicles the failures of companies who didn't realize what their programmers had made available to them. IBM, Xerox, and, some would say, Microsoft are big players in this part of Segaller's tale.

The author puts technological developments in a helpful context: the infamous 100-hour Silicon Valley workweek, the "dog-year" life span of an Internet start-up, and the managerial shufflings of a sponsoring venture capitalist firm all make sense in the world he describes. --Jennifer Buckendorff

From Publishers Weekly

From the early days of ARPA, the federal department that enabled the Internet, to the Microsoft-Netscape wars of the present, computer networking has become a powerful, if not always recognized, force on our culture. In this dry and arcane, if comprehensive, history, Segaller (Invisible Armies) documents the evolution that has generated this revolution. Arranged like a TV documentary, with lead-in paragraphs followed by extended reminiscences (the author has produced an eponymous PBS documentary), Segaller's book covers such developments as packet-switching in the 1960s, which allowed data to be broken down and reassembled; Ethernet in the '70s and Netware in the '80s, both breakthrough networking technologies; and, of course, the creation of the World Wide Web in the 1990s. He leaves no circuit unexposed, paying attention not only to the tech-minded "nerds" but also to financiers. Segaller strews small diamonds throughout his history: his description of a pubescent Harvard student named Bill Gates breaking off a poker game to develop a Basic interpreter is priceless. But more illuminating than any fact are the book's two implicit themes: that without more than a few fortuitous turns, the Internet as we know it may not have come to be; and that most major discoveries were made years, if not decades, before the public came to appreciate them. Whether you call the pioneers it portrays "nerds" or any other name, Segaller's book makes an impressive argument for their significance.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: TV Books; 1st edition (December 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1575001063
• ISBN-13: 978-1575001067
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,028,718 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting in places but very tedious in others, July 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Nerds 2.0.1 (Hardcover)

This is a strange book, though the author collects some really neat information together. Thus, it is worth it to read. But I take issue with several things. First off, the authors makes such a big deal about early hackers being hippies and drug users. Since that is not substantiated elsewhere I have to wonder if Segaller really wanted this to be true and so he made it seem so. I mean he talks about it so much that one gets the idea he wants to be a hippie and a druggie. Really! Most of the nerdy computer types are just too happy to get high off C code rather than ecstasy or whatever!

Second, the book degenerates in about the last sixth into this hyper rush of adrenaline dealing with the web world since 1992, how fast it is, how quick it all changes, and how venture capitalists played such a role. Maybe that is all true, but the sheer love of computing seems really lost. It is like Segaller is writing an economic history and so it got boring for me. There was no sense of perspective. Sure, the world has sped up since the web became ubiquitous but it will undoutedly settle down again into something more staid and bureaucratic.

Once again, it is a worthwhile book to read, but please don't make it the only one you read on the subject of computer and Internet history!!!!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not much history or story, February 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Nerds 2.0.1 (Hardcover)

I generally enjoy computer history books because they usually are fun to read and (like any good history book) there is a lot learn. Both of these statements do not apply to Nerds 2.01. The author acknowledges his lack of technical knowledge early on and it hurts his ability to convey this story. Not only does he miss major events completely he glosses over the ones he does mention (TCP/IP maybe gets 1 page in total).

I had trouble coming back to this one and would defintely not recommend it.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Better suited to those who saw the series, August 8, 2001

By 

Christopher Nieman (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nerds 2.0.1 (Paperback)

I am a little more than halfway through this book, and having missed the PBS series, I feel I'm at a slight disadvantage. My instinct tells me that this plays far better as a companion to the series rather than on its own. I would also suggest that an alternate subtitle should be "A Brief Oral History of the Internet," because the narrative excels with its treatment of the people involved and their stories. The author is less adept in his breathless technical language and descriptions that will confuse the layman and infuriate the expert.

As a side note, Segaller's many errors regarding simple facts of the U.S. space program did not inspire my confidence in his investigative abilities, especially since Segaller ties the subject together with the very beginnings of ARPAnet.

Additionally, this book is "obsolete" because Segaller uses contemporary analogies to illustrate the significance of the history (he uses dangerous words such as 'now' and 'present,' which automatically date any history book). Nevertheless, I would not want to attempt a history of the Internet, and it is for his daunting task that Segaller deserves recognition.