Turning Silicon into Gold

Turning Silicon into Gold
Author: Griffin Kao
Publisher: Apress
Total Pages: 183
Release: 2020-02-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1484256298

A few square miles of Northern California contain some of the world’s largest companies whose products affect billions of people every single day. What made these giants of Silicon Valley as impactful as they are? What do their paths to success have in common? Turning Silicon into Gold is a sharp analysis of 25 case studies examining just that. Authors Griffin Kao, Jessica Hong, Michael Perusse, and Weizhen Sheng provide relevant commentary as they explore the stories behind companies such as Apple, Amazon, OpenTable, and many more. These organizations used unique problem-solving strategies to forever change the face of tech—whether it was Facebook’s second mover advantage over MySpace or Nintendo’s leap of faith in the 1980s to revitalize the video game industry. Learn by example as Turning Silicon into Gold divulges the inner workings behind some of the most significant business decisions in tech history. The nuanced ways these companies tackled emerging markets and generated growth in uncertain times is essential knowledge for modern business leaders, innovators, and aspiring founders. Whether you are simply curious about the origins of the world’s tech giants or you are an entrepreneur looking for inspiration, the thoughtful, comprehensive case study collection that is Turning Silicon into Gold belongs on your bookshelf. What You Will LearnUnderstand why companies like Amazon, Facebook, OpenTable and more have made some controversial and strategic decisionsRealize how Big Data is driving the success of many new and mature venturesSee how tech companies are tackling emerging markets and generating growthExamine how capital flows through the tech industry Who This Book is For The book is for people currently in or interested in exploring a career in the intersection of technology and business, such as product management, entrepreneurship, or non-coding positions at a tech company—it’s also great for people generally curious about how the tech industry operates. The book offers case studies in an engaging and approachable way, while still providing important takeaways and probing questions—perfect for the casual reader or even someone trying to prepare for interviews.

Business Alchemy: Turning Ideas into Gold

Business Alchemy: Turning Ideas into Gold
Author: William R. Cobb
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2012-06-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1468587870

Entrepreneurs play a vital role in economic development as key contributors to technological innovation and new job growth. We discovered that many people, just like you, have the urge to create an enterprise; to help themselves and to make a difference in this world. While successful entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are well publicized, the harsh reality is that most new businesses are prone to failure because they dont have access to accurate information about the entrepreneurial process. This book is a word map for guiding you through that process, from refining your business idea and securing capital to a successful launch into the marketplace. There are many types of business ideas to pursue and you are probably better educated than many historic entrepreneurs - both Thomas Edison and Ray Kroc being high school dropouts and both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates being college dropouts. If you hunger to be your own boss and to make a contribution to society with your ideas, then Business Alchemy: Turning Ideas into Gold has the information for which you have been searching.

Experimental Capitalism

Experimental Capitalism
Author: Steven Klepper
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2015-12-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0691169624

How American industries rose to dominate the economic landscape in the twentieth century For much of the twentieth century, American corporations led the world in terms of technological progress. Why did certain industries have such great success? Experimental Capitalism examines six key industries—automobiles, pneumatic tires, television receivers, semiconductors, lasers, and penicillin—and tracks the highs and lows of American high-tech capitalism and the resulting innovation landscape. Employing "nanoeconomics"—a deep dive into the formation and functioning of companies—Steven Klepper determines how specific companies emerged to become the undisputed leaders that altered the course of their industry's evolution. Klepper delves into why a small number of firms came to dominate their industries for many years after an initial period of tumult, including General Motors, Firestone, and Intel. Even though capitalism is built on the idea of competition among many, he shows how the innovation process naturally led to such dominance. Klepper explores how this domination influenced the search for further innovations. He also considers why industries cluster in specific geographical areas, such as semiconductors in northern California, cars in Detroit, and tires in Akron. He finds that early leading firms serve as involuntary training grounds for the next generation of entrepreneurs who spin off new firms into the surrounding region. Klepper concludes his study with a discussion of the impact of government and the potential for policy to enhance a nation’s high-tech industrial base. A culmination of a lifetime of research and thought, Experimental Capitalism takes a dynamic look at how new ideas and innovations led to America’s economic primacy.

Conquering the Electron

Conquering the Electron
Author: Derek Cheung
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2020-02-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1493049933

Conquering the Electron offers readers a true and engaging history of the world of electronics, beginning with the discoveries of static electricity and magnetism and ending with the creation of the smartphone and the iPad. This book shows the interconnection of each advance to the next on the long journey to our modern-day technologies. Exploring the combination of genius, infighting, and luck that powered the creation of today's electronic age, Conquering the Electron debunks the hero worship so often plaguing the stories of great advances. Want to know how AT&T’s Bell Labs developed semiconductor technology—and how its leading scientists almost came to blows in the process? Want to understand how radio and television work—and why RCA drove their inventors to financial ruin and early graves? Conquering the Electron offers these stories and more, presenting each revolutionary technological advance right alongside blow-by-blow personal battles that all too often took place.

Crystal Fire

Crystal Fire
Author: Michael Riordan
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 370
Release: 1998
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780393318517

This work tells the human story of the process of invention that led to the invention of the transistor.

Crystal Fire: The Invention of the Transistor and the Birth of the Information Age

Crystal Fire: The Invention of the Transistor and the Birth of the Information Age
Author: Michael Riordan
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2023-10-24
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1324074841

"Without the invention of the transistor, I'm quite sure that the PC would not exist as we know it today."—Bill Gates On December 16, 1947, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, physicists at Bell Laboratories, jabbed two electrodes into a sliver of germanium. The power flowing from the germanium far exceeded what went in; in that moment the transistor was invented and the Information Age was born. No other devices have been as crucial to modern life as the transistor and the microchip it spawned, but the story of the science and personalities that made these inventions possible has not been fully told until now. Crystal Fire fills this gap and carries the story forward. William Shockley, Bell Labs' team leader and co-recipient of the Nobel Prize with Brattain and Bardeen for the discovery, grew obsessed with the transistor and went on to become the father of Silicon Valley. Here is a deeply human story about the process of invention — including the competition and economic aspirations involved — all part of the greatest technological explosion in history. The intriguing history of the transistor — its inventors, physics, and stunning impact on society and the economy — unfolds here in a richly told tale."—Science News "Thoroughly accessible to lay readers as well as the techno-savvy. . . . [A] fine book."—Publishers Weekly

Material World

Material World
Author: Ed Conway
Publisher: Knopf
Total Pages: 513
Release: 2023-11-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0593534344

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE • AN ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium. These fundamental materials have created empires, razed civilizations, and fed our ingenuity and greed for thousands of years. Without them, our modern world would not exist, and the battle to control them will determine our future. • Finalist for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award The fiber-optic cables that weave the World Wide Web, the copper veins of our electric grids, the silicon chips and lithium batteries that power our phones and cars: though it can feel like we now live in a weightless world of information—what Ed Conway calls “the ethereal world”—our twenty-first-century lives are still very much rooted in the material. In fact, we dug more stuff out of the earth in 2017 than in all of human history before 1950. For every ton of fossil fuels, we extract six tons of other materials, from sand to stone to wood to metal. And in Material World, Conway embarks on an epic journey across continents, cultures, and epochs to reveal the underpinnings of modern life on Earth—traveling from the sweltering depths of the deepest mine in Europe to spotless silicon chip factories in Taiwan to the eerie green pools where lithium originates. Material World is a celebration of the humans and the human networks, the miraculous processes and the little-known companies, that combine to turn raw materials into things of wonder. This is the story of human civilization from an entirely new perspective: the ground up.

The Innovators

The Innovators
Author: Walter Isaacson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 560
Release: 2014-10-07
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1476708711

Following his blockbuster biography of Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson’s New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed The Innovators is a “riveting, propulsive, and at times deeply moving” (The Atlantic) story of the people who created the computer and the internet. What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail? The Innovators is a masterly saga of collaborative genius destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution—and an indispensable guide to how innovation really happens. Isaacson begins the adventure with Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron’s daughter, who pioneered computer programming in the 1840s. He explores the fascinating personalities that created our current digital revolution, such as Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, John von Neumann, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Robert Noyce, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, and Larry Page. This is the story of how their minds worked and what made them so inventive. It’s also a narrative of how their ability to collaborate and master the art of teamwork made them even more creative. For an era that seeks to foster innovation, creativity, and teamwork, The Innovators is “a sweeping and surprisingly tenderhearted history of the digital age” (The New York Times).

Wall Street Meat

Wall Street Meat
Author: Andy Kessler
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2003
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780972783217

A research analyst, investment banker, and hedge fund manager provides a behind-the-scenes look at some of Wall Street's famous figures and offers a portrait of life on the street at the peak of the technology boom.

Marketing and Advertising in the Online-to-Offline (O2O) World

Marketing and Advertising in the Online-to-Offline (O2O) World
Author: Dinana, Hesham Osama
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2022-10-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1668458462

The field of marketing has changed for the good as the lines between the online and the offline worlds continue to blur and merge as new metaverses emerge. The evolution of online-to-offline and offline-to-online strategies and business models are transforming the research agenda for academicians and work practices for professionals. Further study on this evolution is required to fully understand the opportunities and future directions. Marketing and Advertising in the Online-to-Offline (O2O) World presents an insight into online and offline marketing strategies and practices and focuses on the emerging trend in the online and offline worlds. The book also explores the potential use of emerging technologies such as virtual reality, mixed reality, and big data analytics in different marketing and advertising functions. Covering key topics such as consumer behavior, brand equity, advertising, and brand performance, this reference work is ideal for business owners, industry professionals, managers, administrators, policymakers, researchers, academicians, scholars, practitioners, instructors, and students.