Synopses & Reviews
Best-selling author Andy Kessler ties up the loose ends from his provocative book, Running Money, with this history of breakthrough technology and the markets that funded them.
Expanding on themes first raised in his tour de force, Running Money, Andy Kessler unpacks the entire history of Silicon Valley and Wall Street, from the Industrial Revolution to computers, communications, money, gold and stock markets. These stories cut (by an unscrupulous editor) from the original manuscript were intended as a primer on the ways in which new technologies develop from unprofitable curiosities to essential investments. Indeed, How We Got Here is the book Kessler wishes someone had handed him on his first day as a freshman engineering student at Cornell or on the day he started on Wall Street. This book connects the dots through history to how we got to where we are today.
Synopsis
The author of Running Money explores the interrelationship between the development of Silicon Valley technology and Wall Street, assessing how new technologies evolve from unprofitable curiosities to essential investments. Original.
Table of Contents
Foreword -- Logic and memory -- pt. 1. The industrial revolution. Cannons to steam ; Textiles ; Positively electric ; Transportation elasticity, sea and rail -- pt. 2. Early capital markets. Funding British trade ; Capital markets and bubbles ; Fool's gold -- pt. 3. Components needed for computing. Communications ; Power generation -- pt. 4. Digital computers. Ballistics, codes and bombs ; Transistors and integrated circuits provide scale ; Software and networks ; GPS -- pt. 5. Modern capital markets. Modern gold ; The business of Wall Street ; Insurance ; The modern stock market -- ENIAC press release.