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A review by cwr_2020
The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder
5.0
This book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982, which given the subject matter is really fairly remarkable.
I first read this book almost 40 years ago. It was required reading when I worked at a company called Convex Computer. Several of the people mentioned in this book came over, and some helped found Convex (as well as several from the competing company mentioned in this book, Digital Equipment). I am not sure if the book was supposed to be motivational, or a warning as to what I was signing up for.
Reading it again (it is now classified as “Historical Computing” on Amazon, ouch!), brought back a lot of memories of working on a project like that. The author really captured the intensity, excitement, and outright terror of working on a high-stakes project on the lunatic fringe of what was possible at the time.
The first time I read it I was focused on the technology aspects of the project and who were these people that I was working with.
This time I saw the bigger picture. This book is a great book addressing team dynamics, corporate politics, human behavior, motivation, and management styles.
For Tracy Kidder to get so in with this team to be able to write this book is still amazing to me.
I first read this book almost 40 years ago. It was required reading when I worked at a company called Convex Computer. Several of the people mentioned in this book came over, and some helped found Convex (as well as several from the competing company mentioned in this book, Digital Equipment). I am not sure if the book was supposed to be motivational, or a warning as to what I was signing up for.
Reading it again (it is now classified as “Historical Computing” on Amazon, ouch!), brought back a lot of memories of working on a project like that. The author really captured the intensity, excitement, and outright terror of working on a high-stakes project on the lunatic fringe of what was possible at the time.
The first time I read it I was focused on the technology aspects of the project and who were these people that I was working with.
This time I saw the bigger picture. This book is a great book addressing team dynamics, corporate politics, human behavior, motivation, and management styles.
For Tracy Kidder to get so in with this team to be able to write this book is still amazing to me.