hpagano

A fun approach to the history of technology by organizing information geographically instead of chronologically. This form of organization allowed the author to visit and revisit key players in Silicon Valley's history, which helped the reader review important people and corporations, and gave a feel for how interactions, combinations and recombinations of technical talent made history.

The mesh of history and tourist tips was a little odd, but gave a friendly tone to the book. Some tourist tips were very useful, such as hours for museums, private companies that do or do not offer tours, etc. An awful lot of tourist tips concerned beer and hamburgers- not necessarily fare I'd ever want to consume. I also detected a slight bias against San Jose as lacking taste and culture. Obviously the book was written before the social networking revolution. In addition, the dot com bust was constantly referred to as an important event in the Valley's history, but very little attention was given to forces that led to the burst bubble.