10 Greatest Tech-reads of All Time


3. Name of book: The Soul of a New Machine

Author: Tracy Kidder

Year: 1981

What it’s about: The internal war between two design teams in Data General, one of the first mini-computer manufacturing firms in the 1960s.

What’s great about it: Kidder’s a great storyteller and the book makes you feel like you were actually in the board-room meetings at the company witnessing the intensity of the cold-war-like rivalry between the fresh graduate and the veteran design teams. The book even won a Pulitzer in its time.