If you are interested in technology, the intersection of business strategy and technology and the history of the Internet, this book is for you.
It is a succinct chronicle of how Web 1.0 (connecting computers all over the world) and Web 2.0 (connecting all people) happened. Accounts of some of the most iconic and important technology companies in the world were told without lengthy anecdotal details. The author walks you through how Netscape, Yahoo, Google, eBay, Paypal, iPhone and Facebook, to name a few, came into beings and shaped the personal computing. It’s fascinating to read about the bubble in 2001. The fact that companies could raise tons of money regardless of the lack of business models and revenue, let alone profit, is surreal.
Arguably, the biggest point that I get out of this book, in addition to nice history lessons, is that success greatly stems from serendipities. Without an enabling technology, infrastructure or business environment, we wouldn’t have had the household technology names that we do today. For instance, without Netscape developing the Navigator and SSL, who knows whether we would have had different browsers, online payments and arguably the Internet? Without the existence of broadband connection, it’s likely we wouldn’t have had Web 2.0.
Timing is everything. Being early is equal to being wrong, as many companies which went out of business for being ahead of their times could attest. If you doubt the role of luck in success, read this book.
After this book, I can’t wait to read a similar one on the rise of cloud computing and everything that it enables.
Minh Quang Duong 