"The Silicon Valley Canon: On the paıdeía of the American tech elite"
Paıdeía?
"One must assume that paıdeía, which is to say, education and moral formation in the broadest and most comprehensive sense, is more important than anything else in deciding the character of a particular polıteía."
"I often draw a distinction between the political elites of Washington DC and the industrial elites of Silicon Valley with a joke: in San Francisco reading books, and talking about what you have read, is a matter of high prestige. Not so in Washington DC. In Washington people never read books -- they just write them."
"In Washington, the man of ideas is a wonk. The wonk is not a generalist. The ideal wonk knows more about his or her chosen topic than you ever will. She can comment on every line of a select arms limitation treaty, recite all Chinese human rights violations that occurred in the year 2023, or explain to you the exact implications of the new residential clean energy tax credit -- but never all at once."
"Books and reports are a sort of proof, a sign of achievement that can be seen by climbers of other peaks. An author has mastered her mountain. The wonk thirsts for authority: once she has written a book, other wonks will give it to her."
In contrast,
"The technologists of Silicon Valley do not believe in authority. They merrily ignore credentials, discount expertise, and rebel against everything settled and staid. There is a charming arrogance to their attitude. This arrogance is not entirely unfounded. The heroes of this industry are men who understood in their youth that some pillar of the global economy might be completely overturned by an emerging technology."
"Being men of action, most Silicon Valley sorts do not have time to write books. But they make time to read books."
The author goes on to say that there's no common "cannon" of books people in Washington DC read, but maybe there's a "vague cannon" of books many people in Silicon Valley read? The author goes on to challenge their followers on Twitter. Surprisingly, I actually read a lot of the books on the list.
Books I've read:
Hoftstader (1979), Gödel, Escher, Bach
Feynman (1985), Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman!
Clayton Christensen (1997) The Innovator's Dilemma
Raymond (1999), The Cathedral and the Bazaar
Kurzweil (2005), The Singularity is Near
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2007) Black Swan or (2012) Anti-Fragile (I read both -- his best book is Fooled By Randomness (2001) which came out before both of these)
Thiel (2014), Zero to One
In addition, there were some books I've partially read (does that count?)
Ableson and Sussman (1984), Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
Graham (1998-2024), Essays -- wait, this is actually a blog
Reis (2011), The Lean Startup
Alexander (2013-2024), Slate Star Codex/Astral Codex Ten -- wait, this is actually a blog
Bostrom (2014), Superintelligence
Yudkowsky, et al. (2009-2024), LessWrong -- this is actually a blog, too
Walter Isaacson (2011) Steve Jobs
What do you all think? This is indicative of me having a similar disposition and/or mindset as the American tech elite? Maybe the previous generation?
The Silicon Valley Canon: On the paıdeía of the American tech elite
