How can we better understand the age of computing we are in?
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “ Broadband Capital ” (ID: bjkdzb ).
In 1990, George Gilder predicted in “Microcosm”: “The development of computers can be regarded as a collapse process. Those parts that were once suspended high above the microcosm level, one after another The ground enters the invisible level and disappears out of sight of the naked eye … In this form, human intelligence is transmitted to any tool or device, and to every corner around it. “
In contrast to the development of reality, from the prosperous 1990s to the first 20 years of the new century, the Internet’s innovation has gradually broken through the boundaries of information connection, the boundaries of people-to-people, and people-to-things. Explore the application scenarios of “All Things Connected.” The past 2019 was a landmark year for this process. With the issuance of domestic 5G commercial licenses, the three major operators jointly announced 5G commercialization, the biggest future story-5G, and officially unveiled its prologue.
In change and subversion, there is always constant thinking. This issue of “CBC Hot Reading” specially introduces the 2020 New Year’s Book List. The following readings are selected from the perspectives of the country, entrepreneurial thinking, entrepreneurial experience, business management, and science and humanities. I hope to provide some inspiration for you in the wave.
NO.1 Keywords: Thinking
Hackers and painters
by Paul Graham
The “hacker spirit” in the true sense, Entrepreneurship, and programming languages are the three themes of this technical prose collection. If you want to learn more about the current computing world and its future, Paul Graham’s ideas may help you.
The first few chapters of this book answer some questions you might have thought about. How to start a business successfully? How to build a wealth outlook? Does technology create a gap between technicians and ordinary people? What are programmers doing? Why did the ordinary students in high school end up turning into the most influential people in the world? The next few chapters of this book talk about issues that most people outside of the computer industry haven’t thought about, programming languages, and the power it shapes the world.
NO.2 Keywords: innovation
The soul of the new machine
by Tracy Kidder
“The Soul of a New Machine” is an old book published in 1981. This book completely describes the process of Data General’s development of the Eclipse MV / 8000 computer in the 1970s.
The exciting and cruel feature of the IT industry is that it is both new and old. From this perspective, it seems unnecessary to track an outdated story, but from another perspective, what computers can change is only technology and methods, not will and principles. No machine can last forever, but the world will always give birth to new machines, and there will always be people behind the machines. This book records the pursuit and spirit of IT practitioners in the budding era of the PC. Perhaps even today and in the future, you can still find their shadow in the new generation of people who have entered the IT industry.
NO.3 Keywords: change
Join
by James Burke
“Link” was born from a prestigious BBC documentary. In his book, James Burke pointed out that there is a “remedy” for the anxiety caused by the rapid change of technology, which is to trace back to historical discoveries and connections.
In his writing, creation is not created out of nothing, but connected old things in new ways. History is not a straight line, but a maze that is often lost and full of accidents. Technology has been controlling the direction of history from ancient times to the present. The connections in the history of science and technology can better see the future direction.
Many seemingly irrelevant innovations have finally led to eight changes that changed the world under the influence of the connected network: the atomic bomb, telecommunications, computers, production lines, airplanes, plastics, rockets, and televisions. The inherent change brought by technology to civilization is no less than the epoch-making significance of historical events and characters at historical turning points.
NO.4 Keywords: management
Trillion Dollar Coach
by Eric Schmidt / Jonathan Rosenberg / Alan Eagle
Trillion Dollar Coach is a new book co-authored by three Google executives in tribute to Silicon Valley spiritual mentor Bill Campbell. This book conveys the idea through Campbell’s experience that all managers should be coaches to some extent.
The book states that as a coach, Campbell’s task is not to be responsible for a specific project or to make strategic decisions, but to make others better. His focus is to ensure that the team can work together. As his motto states: “Titles make you a manager, and employees make you a leader.”
Why Campbell? After the once unsuccessful football coach turned to the mall, he coached entrepreneurs such as Jobs, Zuckerberg, and Google founder.Tech giants have a profound impact. At his funeral in 2016, more than one thousand Silicon Valley tech and venture capital leaders participated. The companies founded by the people he coached together had a trillion dollar market value, so this book calls him trillion Dollar coach.
NO.5 Keywords: Avoiding pits
The Messy Middle
by Scott Belsky
Author Scott Belsky is the founder of Behance, Adobe ’s chief product officer, and an early product consultant and investor for companies such as Pinterest, Periscope, and Uber. This book brings together more than 100 authors and other founders and executives’ lessons about entrepreneurial dilemmas.
For example: how to accept and deal with the pressure caused by uncertainty; how to strengthen the team’s incentive system; why you should pay more attention to individual firm opinions rather than a consistent voice; why innovation often happens on the edge of reason, and it How it affects the people you hire; why a product model is worth a thousand meetings, how to promote previously improved ideas; and how to solve the “organizational debt” problem. Maybe it can provide some ideas for entrepreneurs who are in the “messy middle”.
NO.6 Keywords: cognition
Change: Principles for problem formation and resolution
by Paul Watzlawick
This book is a very influential book in the field of American psychology, focusing onExploring a common and paradoxical phenomenon is that many people are eager to change, and put in a lot of common sense efforts but often go against their wishes. The author points out that in many cases the method of solving the problem is actually the root of the problem without solution, that is, the method becomes the problem itself, so it becomes more and more constant.
How to get rid of the “change-effort-abandon” cycle, the author introduces the concepts of first order change and second order change. The difference between the two is that the solution to the second-order change is the solution to the problem of the first-order change; the method of the second-order change is often beyond common sense; the second-order change is to directly investigate the reason for the problem according to the situation (what), without much effort to investigate many hypothetical antecedents (how); the method of the second order change is to reframe some tangled situations concepts or presuppositions and put them in a new interpretation frame.
Although most of the cases in the book come from the author’s clinical experience, the second-order change strategy is also widely applicable in other fields.
NO.7 Keywords: vision
The institutional logic of China’s national governance
by 周雪光
A country’s operation process, its ability to solve problems and its methods, its choices to deal with crises, the relationship between central and local governments, and the relationship between the state and society are all based on a series of institutional facilities. These stable institutional arrangements have shaped the way and way to solve problems, induced corresponding micro-behaviors, and thus largely regulated the trajectories, choices and consequences of state governance.
For those who are here, knowing the institutional logic of China’s national governance can better perceive the complex environment and help achieve its goals.
NO.8 Keywords: reflection
A story of your life
by Ted Chiang
Ted Jiang, a computer major from Brown University, and later worked in the software industry. He is also a very talented science fiction writer. “The Story of Your Life” is a compilation of the author’s early works. There are many interesting thought experiments in the book: What if a linguist learned an alien language? What if humans finally build a towering sky that connects the heavens and the earth? If there is a small bottle of potion, one can have superhuman wisdom after drinking it …
Readers not only get the experience of storytelling, the experience of breaking through the boundaries of thinking, but also the humanistic care and poetry of science fiction writers.
Change: Principles for problem formation and resolution
by Paul Watzlawick
This book is a very influential book in the field of American psychology, focusing onExploring a common and paradoxical phenomenon is that many people are eager to change, and put in a lot of common sense efforts but often go against their wishes. The author points out that in many cases the method of solving the problem is actually the root of the problem without solution, that is, the method becomes the problem itself, so it becomes more and more constant.
How to get rid of the “change-effort-abandon” cycle, the author introduces the concepts of first order change and second order change. The difference between the two is that the solution to the second-order change is the solution to the problem of the first-order change; the method of the second-order change is often beyond common sense; the second-order change is to directly investigate the reason for the problem according to the situation (what), without much effort to investigate many hypothetical antecedents (how); the method of the second order change is to reframe some tangled situations concepts or presuppositions and put them in a new interpretation frame.
Although most of the cases in the book come from the author’s clinical experience, the second-order change strategy is also widely applicable in other fields.
NO.7 Keywords: vision
The institutional logic of China’s national governance
by 周雪光
A country’s operation process, its ability to solve problems and its methods, its choices to deal with crises, the relationship between central and local governments, and the relationship between the state and society are all based on a series of institutional facilities. These stable institutional arrangements have shaped the way and way to solve problems, induced corresponding micro-behaviors, and thus largely regulated the trajectories, choices and consequences of state governance.
For those who are here, knowing the institutional logic of China’s national governance can better perceive the complex environment and help achieve its goals.
NO.8 Keywords: reflection
A story of your life
by Ted Chiang
Ted Jiang, a computer major from Brown University, and later worked in the software industry. He is also a very talented science fiction writer. “The Story of Your Life” is a compilation of the author’s early works. There are many interesting thought experiments in the book: What if a linguist learned an alien language? What if humans finally build a towering sky that connects the heavens and the earth? If there is a small bottle of potion, one can have superhuman wisdom after drinking it …
Readers not only get the experience of storytelling, the experience of breaking through the boundaries of thinking, but also the humanistic care and poetry of science fiction writers.
A story of your life
by Ted Chiang
Ted Jiang, a computer major from Brown University, and later worked in the software industry. He is also a very talented science fiction writer. “The Story of Your Life” is a compilation of the author’s early works. There are many interesting thought experiments in the book: What if a linguist learned an alien language? What if humans finally build a towering sky that connects the heavens and the earth? If there is a small bottle of potion, one can have superhuman wisdom after drinking it …
Readers not only get the experience of storytelling, the experience of breaking through the boundaries of thinking, but also the humanistic care and poetry of science fiction writers.