Condemned
To Repeat The Past? Last week, I mentioned one of the
lessons
learned from Andy Kessler's newest book,
How We Got Here: A Slightly Irreverent History of Technology and
Markets. I've just finished reading it, and just in time,
as well, since you can now check it out for free. While the hard
copy version doesn't come out until June, Kessler is releasing the
book for
free
download off his site in e-book form. If you read his previous
book,
Running Money, you might even recognize a few short
passages in the new book. In
Running Money, Kessler goes
through his own experience figuring out the mental model that
guided his investment philosophy in technology -- and part of that
included a brief history lesson in the start of the industrial
revolution. HWGH is basically an extended version of that history
lesson, written in the same light tone -- designed to be the basic,
quick history manual that anyone in the tech world (in just about
any capacity, from engineer to business to investing) should read.
Indeed, we're already seeing startups and companies making business
decisions that seem like they're following the same bad footsteps
companies took only five years ago. Is it any surprise that some
are repeating the mistakes of 200 years ago as well? One of the
worst things in the tech and business world these days is that many
people can't view trends out past a quarter (or they simply extract
one single trend, without recognizing how others impact them). Any
intelligent business person needs to recognize how trends play out
in the long term, and how they interact with each other. HWGH gives
you plenty of trends from the past few
centuries to help
guide you into that longer term thinking.