Should You Judge Tech Bros by Their Bookshelves?

In August, blogger Tanner Greer posed a fascinating question to the Silicon Valley community: “What are the contents of the ‘vague tech canon’? If we say it is 40 books, what are they?” Greer used the term “canon” to refer to “the collection of works considered representative of a period or genre,” yet qualified it to prevent Harold Bloom—a renowned literary critic who championed a canon of classic works—from spinning in his grave.

Greer’s challenge was swiftly embraced by Patrick Collison, co-founder of the fintech giant Stripe, a company valued at $65 billion. Collison, who is a passionate advocate of reading, was quick to compile a list of 43 books. He clarified that it wasn’t “the list of books that I think one ought to read—it’s just the list that I think roughly covers the major ideas that are influential here.” “Here,” in this context, refers to Silicon Valley.

The list included some predictable choices like Isaac Asimov’s Foundation; Richard Dawkins’s The Selfish Gene; Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged; Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog; Nick Bostrom’s Superintelligence; Richard Rhodes’s The Making of the Atomic Bomb; Eric Raymond’s The Cathedral and the Bazaar; Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language; Fred Brooks’s The Mythical Man-Month; and Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. However, there were surprises like James Scott’s Seeing Like a State, Robert Caro’s The Power Broker, and The Sovereign Individual by William Rees-Mogg and James Dale Davidson, which has captivated several tech enthusiasts over the years.

The list garnered considerable attention. Marc Andreessen, the wealthy and opinionated crypto enthusiast (and now Donald Trump supporter), dismissed it as “aspirational.” According to him, the “real” list would consist of Malcolm Gladwell’s works, Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens, and “assorted DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] training manuals.” Other thoughtful commentators suggested their favorites: Tim Wu’s The Master Switch, Don Norman’s Design of Everyday Things, and Herbert Simon’s The Sciences of the Artificial were among the books proposed. Where were the works of René Girard, Peter Thiel’s favorite philosopher, they asked. And so the debate went on.

Examining one’s bookshelf can provide insights into their thinking, and it’s tempting to make inferences about the world’s tech elite based on these lists. One striking observation from Collison’s list is the low representation of female authors—only three made the cut: Ayn Rand, Donella Meadows, and Anna Wiener. Greer—who initiated the question—categorizes the books into five main groups: speculative or science fiction, historical case studies of significant individuals or technological moments, general principles of physics, math, or cognitive science, operating principles and business strategies of successful startups, and narrative histories of successful startups themselves.

The tech bros no more have our best interests at heart than John D. Rockefeller did back in the day.

The number of biographies in Collison’s list does not surprise Greer, as he sees an implicit “great man” theory of history within the tech canon. This theory is reflected in the biographies of influential figures but notably lacks a biography of Steve Jobs while including one of Elon Musk. Greer believes contemporary tech enthusiasts are drawn to the stories of earlier great men, much like the ancient historian Plutarch was. Plutarch wrote, “Virtue in action immediately takes such hold of a man that he no sooner admires a deed than he sets out to follow in the steps of the doer.”

For genuine insight into the intellectual life of Silicon Valley, one might need to look beyond these lists. A good starting point is Adrian Daub’s What Tech Calls Thinking: An Inquiry into the Intellectual Bedrock of Silicon Valley. Daub, a humanities professor at Stanford, argues that there’s significant virtue signaling in the reading lists of modern tech leaders. He connects their supposedly original thinking to the ideas of Heidegger and Rand, the new age Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, and American traditions from tent revivals to predestination. His work suggests that these tech personalities may not have our best interests at heart, reminiscent of historical figures like John D. Rockefeller.

Bunker mentality
Real-Estate Shopping for the Apocalypse is a lovely New Yorker piece by Patricia Marx on how the price of underground bunkers is heating up in the US.

History of rock
Stone age builders were good engineers. That’s the conclusion of a study of a 6,000-year-old monument published in Nature.

Give this piece a chance
Cynthia Zarin’s article Another Life: On Yoko Ono in the Paris Review is a delightful profile of a woman we thought we knew—and didn’t. It includes the story of how she met John Lennon.

Source: The Guardian, New Yorker, Nature, Paris Review