While there are many courses and tutorials online, learning from a book is still one of the best ways to greatly improve your skills. Below I have selected top Silicon Valley books.
- 1. Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley (2018)
- 2. A People’s History of Silicon Valley (2018)
- 3. 111 Places in Silicon Valley That You Must Not Miss (111 Places in …. That You Must Not Miss) (2019)
- 4. Secrets of Silicon Valley: What Everyone Else Can Learn from the Innovation Capital of the World (2014)
- 5. Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley (2019)
- 6. The Devil in Silicon Valley: Northern California, Race, and Mexican Americans (2004)
- 7. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup (2020)
- 8. The Prophet from Silicon Valley: The Complete Story of Sequential Circuits (2015)
- 9. Chronicles of a Silicon Valley Pinhead CEO (2019)
- 10. The Global Silicon Valley Handbook (2017)
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1. Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley (2018)
The instant New York Times bestseller, now available in paperback and featuring a new afterword from the author–the insider’s guide to the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, the inner workings of the tech world, and who really runs Silicon Valley“Incisive…. The most fun business book I have read this year…. Clearly there will be people who hate this book — which is probably one of the things that makes it such a great read.”— Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York TimesImagine a chimpanzee rampaging through a datacenter powering everything from Google to Facebook. Infrastructure engineers use…
2. A People’s History of Silicon Valley (2018)
Literary Nonfiction. A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF SILICON VALLEY follows the history of the people exploited, displaced, and made obsolete by the tech industry, from the colonization of the Bay Area to the present day. From the first Macintosh to the rise of social media, A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF SILICON VALLEY peels back the curtain on an industry that brands itself as visionary yet which may be chipping away at the foundations of society, including our democratic institutions….
3. 111 Places in Silicon Valley That You Must Not Miss (111 Places in …. That You Must Not Miss) (2019)
Silicon Valley has become the Mesopotamia of the Digital Age, built on cycles of innovation and disruption, monstrous ambition, and a steady supply of labor and capital. Yet for all that's known about companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook – and the personas behind those companies – the culture of Silicon Valley remains elusive and contradictory, even to many locals. This unique guidebook, written by longtime local Floriana Petersen, takes you on an insider's tour of 111 cool, offbeat, and very compelling places that offer insight into the evolving character of…
4. Secrets of Silicon Valley: What Everyone Else Can Learn from the Innovation Capital of the World (2014)
While the global economy languishes, one place just keeps growing despite failing banks, uncertain markets, and high unemployment: Silicon Valley. In the last two years, more than 100 incubators have popped up in the high-tech capital, and the number of angel investors has skyrocketed. Today, 40 percent of all venture capital investments in the United States come from Silicon Valley firms, compared to 10 percent from New York. In Secrets of Silicon Valley, entrepreneur and media commentator Deborah Perry Piscione takes us inside this vibrant ecosystem…
5. Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley (2019)
Silicon Valley is a modern utopia where anyone can change the world. Unless you’re a woman.For women in tech, Silicon Valley is not a fantasyland of unicorns, virtual reality rainbows, and 3D-printed lollipops, where millions of dollars grow on trees. It’s a “Brotopia,” where men hold all the cards and make all the rules. Vastly outnumbered, women face toxic workplaces rife with discrimination and sexual harassment, where investors take meetings in hot tubs and network at sex parties.In this powerful exposé, Bloomberg TV journalist Emily…
6. The Devil in Silicon Valley: Northern California, Race, and Mexican Americans (2004)
This sweeping history explores the growing Latino presence in the United States over the past two hundred years. It also debunks common myths about Silicon Valley, one of the world’s most influential but least-understood places. Far more than any label of the moment, the devil of racism has long been Silicon Valley’s defining force, and Stephen Pitti argues that ethnic Mexicans–rather than computer programmers–should take center stage in any contemporary discussion of the “new West.” Pitti weaves together the experiences of disparate residents–early Spanish-Mexican settlers, Gold Rush miners, farmworkers transplanted from Texas, Chicano…
7. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup (2020)
In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the next Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup “unicorn” promised to revolutionize the medical industry with its breakthrough device, which performed the whole range of laboratory tests from a single drop of blood. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at more than $9 billion, putting Holmes’s worth at an estimated $4.5 billion. There was just one problem: The…
8. The Prophet from Silicon Valley: The Complete Story of Sequential Circuits (2015)
One of the great American synthesizer companies, founded and led by San Francisco electronics and computer graduate, Dave Smith, Sequential Circuits Inc. paved the way for music of the future. Smith brought easy, affordable and powerful polyphonic synthesis to all levels of music production in the form of the ground-breaking Prophet-5 synthesizer. Released in 1978, the Prophet led the new wave movement into the next decade, creating a sonically exciting soundtrack to eighties culture. It expanded the palette of all music genres and was embraced by…
9. Chronicles of a Silicon Valley Pinhead CEO (2019)
The story behind new leadership of a Silicon Valley start-up as it falls from grace….
10. The Global Silicon Valley Handbook (2017)
Silicon Valley has become synonymous with big ideas, start-ups, and inventing the future. But today, the magic of Silicon Valley has gone viral and global. From Austin to Boston, from Shanghai to Dubai, a Global Silicon Valley is emerging.In THE GLOBAL SILICON VALLEY HANDBOOK, bestselling author, venture capitalist, and global thought leader, Michael Moe, maps out an insider’s guide to Silicon Valley and the hottest emerging markets from around the world. The book highlights need-to-knows, including who the top VCs and angel investors are, phrases to avoid in a pitch, or even where to close a deal…
Best Silicon Valley Books that Should be on Your Bookshelf
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Genesis and download some silicon valley books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America
Author(s): Margaret O’Mara
Publisher: Penguin Press, Year: 9 July 2019, Size: 26 Mb, Download: epub
ID: 2387891
The Psychology of Silicon Valley: Ethical Threats and Emotional Unintelligence in the Tech Industry
Author(s): Katy Cook
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan, Year: 2020, Size: 714 Kb, Download: epub
ID: 2426352
Whistleblower: My Journey To Silicon Valley And Fight For Justice At Uber
Author(s): Susan Fowler
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, Year: 2020, Size: 1013 Kb, Download: epub
ID: 2474486
Bit Tyrants: The Political Economy of Silicon Valley
Author(s): Rob Larson
Publisher: Haymarket Books, Year: 2020, Size: 2 Mb, Download: epub
ID: 2476936
Reprogramming the American Dream: From Rural America to Silicon Valley—Making AI Serve Us All
Author(s): Kevin Scott
Publisher: HarperCollins, Year: 2020, Size: 2 Mb, Download: epub
ID: 2498476
Abolish Silicon Valley: How to Liberate Technology from Capitalism
Author(s): Wendy Liu
Publisher: Repeater, Year: 2020, Size: 350 Kb, Download: epub
ID: 2502324
Out-Innovate: How Global Entrepreneurs--from Delhi to Detroit--Are Rewriting the Rules of Silicon Valley
Author(s): Alejandro "Alex" Lazarow
Publisher: Harvard Business Press, Year: 2020, Size: 2 Mb, Download: epub
ID: 2545810
Terms of Disservice: How Silicon Valley is Destructive by Design
Author(s): Dipayan Ghosh
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press, Year: 2020, Size: 8 Mb, Download: pdf
ID: 2551812
Immortality, Inc.: renegade science, silicon valley billions, and the quest to live forever
Author(s): Walter, Chip
Publisher: National Geographic Society, Year: 2020, Size: 3 Mb, Download: epub
ID: 2738836
Please note that this booklist is not final. Some books are really chart-busters according to The New York Times, others are composed by unknown authors. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant resources you could recommend? Drop a comment if you have any feedback on the list.