Valley of Genius is a history of Silicon Valley based on the people who made it. Since the work was based on interviews, I expected that it would read as actual interviews, where the dialog exists between the author and the "genius". Instead, the author was removed from the chapters and instead the entire text consisted of the different participants being quoted. This writing style took sometime to accept. Initially, I wanted to know exactly who each person was and their role in the narration, which given the numbers involved would significantly detract from the story being told. Then I stopped bothering with the names, only looking for them when two (or more) speakers refer to each other. And this aspect is the best of the book, to have the different individuals having a debate in the dialog, otherwise each chapter is just narration. That said, the concern is that there is lost context to the quotes, as the author has explicitly stated the interviews had been spliced together.
All in all I enjoyed the book, but that only merits 3.5/5 stars.
(A free copy of the book was provided through Goodreads.)
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