A lot changed in the world of technology this year, but equally, much appeared to stay the same.
We saw potentially game-changing notions like the Metaverse gain traction, but more of the same from the tech giants, which seemed preoccupied with the deteriorating economic outlook and trimming costs to survive hard times ahead.
A handful of tech-themed books and newsletters helped me make sense of what was going on.
I heartily recommend all of them if you are looking for some thought-provoking summertime reading and insights into the big trends that will continue to shape the business of technology in 2023.
Here are five great tech books I read in 2022:
1. After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul
Every now and then I pick up Steve Jobs, the definitive biography of the Apple founder by Walter Isaacson, and read random passages.
It’s an inspiring tale, well told, and a reminder of what innovation can achieve for humanity. It’s also an eye-opening insight into a complicated character who demanded perfection and mercilessly drove everyone around him to try and achieve it.
But Steve Jobs died in 2011 and Apple is a very different company these days. New York Times reporter Tripp Mickle, who has covered the Apple beat for years, outlines just how different Apple is in After Steve.
He charts the rise of Tim Cook, the declining influence of star designer Johny Ive and the lack of game-changing new products from Apple in recent years.
A reminder of what makes Apple great, but also an insightful look at Apple’s struggles in the absence of its spiritual leader.
2. Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making
Tony Fadell is a legend in the world of product design and innovation, having led the teams that created the iPod, iPhone and the Nest thermostat.
Here he rounds up lessons from his three decades working in Silicon Valley at Appel and other companies, in a series of short and plainly written chapters that put you in the room where decisions were made about now iconic products.
It isn’t just about design and innovation.
Fadell’s reflections on leadership, failure and mentorship offer up nuggets of wisdom for anyone trying to tackle problems in their own career, no matter what industry they are in.
3. Chip Wars: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology
We’ve heard a lot since the pandemic started about “supply chain issues” and how they have caused headaches for electric car makers and laptop companies as they face shortages of crucial semiconductors and computer chips.
But economic historian Chris Miller paints a bigger picture, looking at the history of computer chip production and how it has become a geopolitical football kicked between China and the US, which is now spending tens of billions of dollars attempting to reshore chip production it had outsourced to Taiwan and South Korea.
Chip Wars makes the convincing argument that computer chips are as essential to economic prosperity and military power as oil and data and reveals exactly what is at stake if the global conflict was to dramatically limit the international supply of computer chips.
4. Binge Times: Inside Hollywood’s Furious Billion-Dollar Battle to Take Down Netflix
We’ve seen the proliferation of streaming options on our smart TV screens: Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+ and Neon among them.
Where does that leave the king of the streamers – Netflix?
Journalists Dade Hayes and Dawn Chmielewski go inside the multibillion dollar effort to take on Netflix at its own game and reshape the future of TV.
This is an incredibly well-crafted tale about the disruption of the TV industry – one of the most profitable and influential of the traditional industries, and one that was slow to respond to the streaming revolution.
The book gives a great analysis of how the covid-19 pandemic proved a boon for streaming platforms, but also set up unrealistic expectations for future growth which every player is now struggling with.
Of interest to anyone who loves classic business stories.
5. The Metaverse And How It Will Revolutionise Everything
If you want to cut through all the hype and misinformation about what the “Metaverse” is, you can’t go past venture capitalist Matthew Ball’s primer on the topic, Framework for the Metaverse.
It’s a clear-eyed explanation of the technological and philosophical foundations underpinning the “next internet”.
All of that thinking has been expanded on in this book that came out in July, as Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta was doing its best to claim its place as a leader in the development of 3D virtual worlds – and generally failing to convince the industry, investors and consumers alike, that it is building a world we want to inhabit.
Ball takes us on a tour of the existing Metaverse players, including Minecraft and Roblox, and outlines the technical and governance issues that will need to be overcome to achieve a network of interconnected virtual worlds that have a chance of transforming our current experience of the internet.
An essential read if you are looking to get up to speed on all things Metaverse.
The five best tech newsletters to subscribe to
We are all struggling with information overload. I grapple with it each day as I browse my Feedly RSS reader, trying to stay abreast of the important developments in the world of technology. It doesn’t really work – too much information, without the context explaining its importance.
Thankfully we have seen, in the last few years, a revival of newsletter writing, particularly on the Substack platform, which was co-founded by Kiwi journalist Hamish MacKenzie and which business journalist Bernard Hickey and purveyor of all things weird, quirky and astounding, David Farrier, have harnessed to great effect.
A good newsletter writer offers more than a curated summary of the best of the mainstream media outlets, though that in itself can be very useful.
A newsletter writer who knows their stuff is presenting you with the important stuff you need to know in the niche they specialise in.
Here are five newsletters I subscribe to which help me navigate the fast-paced world of tech.
1. Memia
One of the highlights of my Wednesday, after I’ve attempted the QuiznessDesk quiz, is taking in Ben Reid’s weekly newsletter, Memia.
The Christchurch-based futurist and tech strategist “tracks and analyses key developments at the confluence of emerging technology and global socio-economic change”.
You can be reading about geoengineering one minute and analysis of universal basic housing schemes the next.
I love that it’s all through a uniquely NZ lens.
The free version is full of juicy tidbits and I love his “weak signals” section which looks at some of the more out-there developments in tech.
Free to subscribe to, but with a premium edition that offers lots of member benefits, including access to Ben’s knowledge graph of all the information he has collated in putting Memia together.
2. The Information
Many of the tech-related stories of real significance this year were broken by the team at The Information, which goes behind the big stories playing out in Silicon Valley to give an inside view of what’s going on.
Unfortunately, The Information, at US$468 (NZ$747) for an annual subscription, is beyond my budget. So I quickly hit the paywall when I click on its tantalising headlines.
But it has a very good free daily newsletter called The Briefing, which is put together by Martin Peers and Jessica Lessin, top-notch business and tech journalists at The Information.
A must-browse each day.
3. Bloomberg Tech Daily
Bloomberg has a number of good newsletters, including Power On which looks at developments in the world of consumer tech, and Cyber Bulletin which goes “inside the shadow world of hackers and cyber-espionage” each week.
But the most useful is Bloomberg Tech Daily, a well-written and researched wrap-up of news from the world of tech published every day.
Most of the links in the newsletter are to Bloomberg stories, which require a premium subscription to access, but the newsletter itself is free and so on-point, you’ll feel better informed for scanning it in your inbox.
4. TLDR
A relatively new arrival on the newsletter scene, but one that’s made a big impact with its useful summary of the tech news you need to know, in the world of “startups, tech, and programming”.
It can be a bit heavy on sponsored content posts, but the news round-up is usually on the money.
TLDR now has over 750,000 subscribers and while US-centric in focus, is designed to put the important stories in tech on your radar.
5. Exponential View
Ben Reid, who puts together Memia each week, introduced me to the work of Azeem Azhar and his excellent Exponential View newsletter, which Azhar describes as “your weekly, trusted, intellectually-curious look into the near future of technology, political economy, startups & innovation”.
Azhar, a tech investor and author of the 2021 futurist book Exponential, is preoccupied with exponential technologies – artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, renewable energy, and how society uses them.
The premium version of the newsletter is reasonably priced at US$120 a year for a premium subscription. Azhar also hosted the excellent Exponential View podcast, which went on hiatus in July after producing 160 episodes.
I hope it returns, as the conversations between Azhar and his high-profile guests were always fascinating.
Originally published on BusinessDesk.co.nz
Photo credit: Bolivia Inteligente, Unsplash
PETER GRIFFIN 