Accidental Empires

I’ve long described these pieces about the books I read as notes or commentary rather than reviews. My intent is to document thoughts rather than persuade you to read (or not to read) them. The reason I mention it in the context of “Accidental Empires” (subtitle: “How the boys of Silicon Valley make their millions, battle foreign competition, and still can’t get a date”) is that I’m also not trying to be objective or even-handed.

I love this book.

So yeah, it’s gossipy rather than a down-the-line, strait-laced history book. As he points out early on, that means he can take certain liberties, but it covers the main points of the seventies and eighties rise of the Personal Computer. Because it’s mostly historical, it’s surprising how well it has aged. He even connects the dots from pre-computer times.

The point is that all these technologies [telephones, radio, television] found their greatest success being used in ways other than were originally expected. That’s what will happen with personal computers too. Fifteen years from now, we won’t be able to function without some sort of machine with a microprocessor and memory inside. Though we probably won’t call it a personal computer, that’s what it will be.

The book was published in 1992¹. Fifteen years after 1992 was 2007, which was the year the iPhone launched and smartphones started to become mainstream. Now we all have a machine with a microprocessor² and memory inside that we don’t call a personal computer.

Ironically, it’s the end of the book, where he starts to talk about the future of computing, where Cringely’s prediction powers start to fade.

Alas, I’m not giving very good odds that Steve Jobs will be the leader of the next generation of personal computing.

He also talks about RISC processors and a lot about IBM and the loss of some key parts of the US industry to elsewhere in the world. In the early nineties they were worried about Japan and Korea, rather than China, Taiwan and Vietnam. He’s not really wrong about those things. RISC processors basically won, but the debate hasn’t been A Thing for some time. And worrying about industry decline is a perennial concern.

That’s not a criticism of the book, though. It was written in the early nineties and is always going to represent the obsessions and fears of the time.

Sure, it could be more “factual” and less anecdotal. It could talk about the personal computer industry outside the US. But adding those things would make it less entertaining and a lot longer, both of which would be to its detriment.

One final note: as I was writing this, I learned that Cringely (may have) recently died. As that thread shows, there have been questions about the truth of some of the stories in the book (and what happened to him later). I’ve known about many of them for some time and it really doesn’t affect my love of the book. It seems that I’m not alone.