Subjects:  1. Biography   2. Children's 9-12 - Sociology   3. Children: Grades 4-6   4. Florida   5. Juvenile literature   6. Miami   7. Nicaraguan American families   8. Nicaraguan Americans   9. People & Places - United States - Hispanic/Latino   10. Political refugees   11. Social Situations - General   

Malone's account of the creation and historical development of the microprocessor is the closest account to the truth that I have seen.This book takes full advantage of a good opportunity to tell the story correctly. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A good chronicle that becomes repetitive
Michael Malone does a great job chronicling the birth and life of the microprocessor, but some of his material becomes a little repetive. Ultimately, I started to lose interest in the whole story. Although his information is well documented, and he apparently has an excellent grasp of every aspect of the microprocessor industry, he probably could have edited out a good deal of the material. On the positive side, I was elated to see someone finally give proper credit where it was due, especially to Federico Faggin, whose name never appears where it should in the microprocessor history books: right next to Ted Hoff and Stan Mazor.

Very interesting read
If you're interesting in knowing the history behind the microprocessor industry then this book is for you. Some parts a little slow, like the chapter on the microprocessor fabrication process, but the rest of the book is great.

Thorough, well documented history of the microprocessor
This is a great book which takes you through the genesis of the microprocessor all the way into the mid-90's. It is full of interesting facts and it describes the human side of technology development as well as the scientific. It is definitely worth reading, especially if you are in the field of computer technology. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Bks - General Information   2. Computer Books: General   3. Hardware - Personal Computers - General   4. History   5. Microprocessors   6. Reference - General   7. United States   

Subjects:  1. Biography   2. Biography / Autobiography   3. Business   4. Business & Economics   5. Business/Economics   6. Businesspeople   7. Computer industry   8. Entrepreneurship   9. General   10. Interviews   11. Reference   12. United States   13. Business & Economics / General   14. Industry & Industrial Studies   

Apple Computer has made for good copy over the years. From its beginnings in the garage owned by Steve Jobs's parents and the launch of the Macintosh to the regimes of John Scully and Gil Amelio, Apple's story is irresistible and has been captured in books such asThe Little Kingdom by Michael Moritz, The Macintosh Way by Guy Kawasaki,Insanely Great by Steven Levy, andApple by Jim Carlton. Now in Infinite Loop, Michael S. Malone offers what may be the best rendition yet of Apple's storied past.

Malone's account begins deep in the heart of Santa Clara Valley and the early lives of Apple's two founders, Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Malone seamlessly interlaces his accounts of the forces that shaped the two Steves--from the nascent electronics industry of the '60s and companies such as Sylvania and Hewlett Packard to Jobs's work at Atari and his repeated, and often deceitful, manipulation of his genius friend, the Woz. From these early beginnings, Malone takes the reader through the life of Apple Computer: its founding and launch of the Apple I, the return of Steve Jobs, the rollout of the iMac. In the end, Malone, a journalist who grew up in Silicon Valley and first covered Apple in 1979, writes that Apple was a company with lots of attitude but one that was bereft of character, and only when that fact was laid bare "did the essential hollowness of the enterprise stand exposed." Infinite Loop is a wonderfully written, even gripping, corporate biography that anyone who has fallen under Apple's spell will enjoy. Recommended. --Harry C. Edwards ... Read more

Customer Reviews (38)

600 pages and I read it twice
Michael S. Malone's Infinite Loop: How The World's Most Insanely Great Computer Company Went Insane is the tale of a company that had it all - and blew it.

In the early days of personal computers, Apple had superior technology and customers that displayed fanatical product loyalty. Its young founders became instant archetypes of the bravado and creativity that made the U.S. high-tech industry the envy of the world. But Jobs and Wozniak achieved too much too early in life, and Apple, it seems, lost its magic.

From the unique vantage point of having grown up with Jobs and Wozniak, and having covered Apple for years as a journalist, Malone manages to tell a fascinating behind-the-scenes story of the world?s most insanely great company.

As a technophile, I very much enjoyed this book. As a Mac addict I couldn?t help wanting to put my hands over my eyes and scream as I read about some of the company?s great blunders.

No review would be complete without also noting that while Malone brings to this account authority and understanding of the big picture, his disgust with Steve Jobs at times oozes from the pages of this book. Still, Infinite Loop is a great read and the most comprehensive account of Apple Computer?s history. I also recommend The Little Kingdom by Michael Moritz (if you can find it).

Infinite Loop - definitely slanted, but comprehensive
As a devout Mac user, I've been interested in reading Infinite Loop since it was released. And boy is it good -- although it's definitely biased, and Malone certainly has an axe to grind with Steve Jobs and Apple.

The book is good for recounting the story of Apple -- from its rise out of Jobs' garage to his sacking, the dark ages of the mid nineties and the company's reemergence with the iMac. Of course, Malone is skeptical about the iMac's success, and tries to pass his book off as an eulogy when it's clear that Apple is currently in the midst of a resurgance.

More than anything, this is a corporate history, and is often mired down with business and technological details that might boggle the mind of the uninitiated. But if you're genuinely interested in Apple, the PC industry, and a fascinating story populated with colorful real-life characters (minus Gil Amelio of course), then you should check this book out.

The story of Apple doesn't get better then this.
What can I say. Great Book!!! I got hooked right from the foreword. The writing is crisp and the author has done a elegant job of balancing the history,technology and, people connected with Apple.The chapters are excellently divided according to the stages the company went through. For eg. the first chapter is called 'ROOTS', then 'SEED', 'SPROUT', 'SAPLING' etc. For me this the best book on Apple or for that matter the best book on the history of any computer company. Bravos to you Mr. Malone. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Apple And Macintosh (Microcomputers)   2. Apple Computer, Inc   3. Business & Economics   4. Business / Economics / Finance   5. Case studies   6. Computer Books: Internet General   7. Computer industry   8. Corporate & Business History - General   9. Corporate culture   10. General   11. Hardware - Personal Computers - Macintosh   12. History Of Specific Companies   13. Infrastructure   14. Business & Economics / General   

Customer Reviews (1)

Outstanding presentation of material
This book is written for engineers both in school and in the real world. The ideas are clear and well organized. Malone and Doherty have a knack for 'distilling' the important concepts out of a complex project and enabling the reader to learn how to do the same.

Highly recommended! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Chemical Engineering Operations   2. Engineering - Chemical & Biochemical   3. General   4. Science/Mathematics   5. Technology   6. Technology & Industrial Arts   7. Technology / Engineering / Chemical & Biochemical   

Subjects:  1. Children's 9-12 - Sociology   2. Children: Young Adult (Gr. 7-9)   3. Florida   4. Guatemala   5. Guatemalan American families   6. Juvenile literature   7. Lake Worth   8. People & Places - United States - Hispanic/Latino   9. Political refugees   10. Social Situations - General   

Customer Reviews (4)

An interesting biography of a business genius
«The wealth of the country, its capital, its credit, must be saved from the predatory poor as well as the predatory rich, but above all from the predatory politician» - James J. Hill.

In her 1962 lecture, «America's Persecuted Minority : Big Business», Ayn Rand distinguished two types of entrepreneurs, whom Burton Folsom Jr. was later to label «economic» and «political»: «self-made men who earned their fortunes by personal ability, by free trade on a free market» and «men with political pull, who made fortunes by means of special privileges granted to them by the government.» And according to her, James Jerome Hill was an arch-representative of the former group, because he built his transcontinental railroad, the Great Northern, «without any federal help whatever.»

Michael P. Malone's admiration for Hill, on the other hand, is much more moderate (and for those who think such moderation unjust, he is kind enough to direct us to Albro Martin's «highly laudatory» two-volume biography of Hill, *James J. Hill and the Opening of the Northwest*)

For instance, he puts the phrase «self-made man» in quotation marks when applying it to Hill, for, he says, Hill's fortune «sprout... from the rich seedbed of federal subsidy»: by completing his first large scale project in time (the Manitoba railroad), Hill managed to reap the «seventh largest of the original seventy-five railroad grants», located mostly in the fertile Red River valley. Therefore, Malone says, we should forget the «hoariest, and most mischievous, of all the many legends surrounding Hill»- the one perpetrated by Ayn Rand and, after her, Burton Folsom Jr.- which «rhapsodizes about how he built a great transcontinental line without the benefit of a federal land grant.»

Was Hill therefore just another political entrepreneur? I don't think so.

First, Malone here seems to be conflating federal subsidies and land grants. A federal subsidy, in my understanding, is a transfer of money or produced goods, which by its very essence involves a forced redistribution and is therefore immoral. A land grant, on the other hand, consists in the granting of a non-improved natural resource to its actual developer, in a good approximation of the Lockean ideal of acquisition through labour. What makes it a form of «federal aid» is only the government's assumption of the power to acquire land by some non-Lockean process (i.e. by fiat, or in this case, purchase from another government that had acquired the land by fiat.)

Second, the lands granted to the railroads actually owed most of their value to the building of the roads. As Clarence Carson explains in *Throttling the Railroads* : «the lands granted [however fertile] were worth little to nothing on the market at the time they were granted.» This was so because cultivating those lands would have been economically hopeless without the cheap transportation to population centers provided by the railroads.

And third, Malone's metaphor makes it sound as though Hill's fortune merely grew out of the «soil» of federal subsidy by some natural, automatic process or, to mix metaphors, a snowball effect. Actually, the building of the Manitoba railroad is only chapter 2 of the biography, and there are 6 more chapters to go in which Malone himself offers ample illustration that the building of Great Northern and the rest of Hill's achievements did not simply «sprout» from the government's bounty.

Whatever the motivations for Malone's very mixed final estimate of Hill, he does grant his subject a certain number of admirable character traits, which confirm Edwin Locke's conclusions in *The Prime Movers*. For instance, Malone singles out the following as Hill's distinctive traits in chapter 4: «his remarkable mastery over every detail of what was now a far-flung operation, his vision of the inevitable triumph of transcontinental through-carriers [together forming Locke's virtue of «independent vision»], his insufferable [Malone again...] iron will and work ethic [Locke's «drive to action»], and his recruitment of an able coterie of men [Locke's «love of ability in others»].» And this is only Malone himself trying to summarize Hill's virtues : the book offers much more concrete material for you to make your own identifications and corroborate Locke's analysis.

The flaw of *Empire Builder of the Northwest*, in my opinion, is that it is merely interesting and informative where, given its subject, it could have been epic. Malone himself is no great enthusiast of economic freedom: at one point, he refers to «the simplistic bromides of laissez-faire». Moreover, the book only offers two maps, which makes following some of the descriptions rather difficult. However, if you do not have the time for Albro Martin's longer work and are frustrated by the mere 22 pages in Folsom's *The Myth of the Robber Barons*, Malone's book remains a good introduction to the life of an immensely productive and hardworking man, who was also a voracious reader, a faithful husband and- as the opening quote reveals- a «true believer in the virtues of unfettered capitalism».

left empty
Perhaps the author should have written a history of the Northwest, and northern railroads. I found very little of the persona of James J. Hill in this. It is a very historical narritive, not very biographic.

Great Book !
A new favorite of our staff..and recomended to our members who would like to understand the Northwest in a brand new light. Malone is an excellent writer and this book a gem ! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Biography & Autobiography   2. Biography / Autobiography   3. Biography/Autobiography   4. Business   5. Historical - General   6. Historical - U.S.   7. United States - 19th Century/Turn of the Century   

Features

• Large Prin

Subjects:  1. Chemical processes   2. Congresses   3. Data processing   4. Engineering - Chemical & Biochemical   5. General   6. Reference   7. Technology   8. Technology & Industrial Arts   

Subjects:  1. Humor   2. Topic - Political   

Customer Reviews (3)

philosophy of the future of business
I have read the book 4-5 years ago, and it sounded like science fiction to me, far future, but it did made lot of sense. I have also put my own money where my mouth is. I made my software development team 'Virtual'. Currently we have several people work on 2 continents, from own homes and doing a great job. Thanks to this book that gave me the great insights in change in emplyment and production patterns.

Avoid this book. It is a 'virtual waste' of time.
This book does not deliver any new insights or even clever examples of new business structures. I believe this book was written only for the intention of writing a book, and not to educate the reader. I even remember Andy Grove of Intel scoffing at the title when the book was publshed.

Still the standard
I have read this book 3 or 4 years ago the first time (in its German translation). There is still (June 1997) no better book for the strategies an philosophies of Virtual Corporations. It belongs to the 5 best and most often used business books I own ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Business / Economics / Finance   2. Business/Economics   3. Case studies   4. Management   5. Manufactures   6. New products   7. Operations Management   8. Technological innovations   

Subjects:  1. Animals / Pets   2. Dogs   

Subjects:  1. 20th century   2. Civilization   3. Geography   4. History - General History   5. History: American   6. Human Geography   7. Montana   8. Montana - Local History   9. United States - State & Local - General   

Subjects:  1. Non-Classifiable   2. Nonfiction - General   

Subjects:  1. Agriculture - Agronomy   2. Carbon content   3. Carbon sequestration   4. Congresses   5. General   6. Science   7. Science/Mathematics   8. Soils   9. Technology & Industrial Arts   

Subjects:  1. Historiography   2. History - General History   3. U.S. Local History - Western United States   4. United States - State & Local   5. West (U.S.)