Technology & Engineering Ebooks

Steve Case, New York Times bestselling author of The Third Wave and cofounder of America Online shows how entrepreneurs across the country are building groundbreaking companies, renewing communities, and creating new jobs—reimagining the American landscape “and [giving] us hope for America’s future” (Ken Burns). In 2014, Steve Case launched Revolution’s Rise of the Rest, an initiative to accelerate the growth of tech startups across the country. Rise of the Rest is based on a simple idea: cities can be renewed and rise again if they develop a vibrant startup culture. A visionary entrepreneur himself, Case believes that great entrepreneurs can be found anywhere, and can thrive with the proper support and investment. In fact, they’re key to the American DNA. After all, America itself was a startup. It struggled to get going and almost didn’t make it. Today it’s the leader of the free world, in part because it has the world’s largest economy—a testament to several generations of pioneering entrepreneurs. But America needs help keeping its promises, as it is harder today for innovators who live outside the major tech hubs. For most of the past decade, seventy-five percent of venture capital has gone to just three states—California, New York, and Massachusetts—while the forty-seven states making up the rest of the country have been forced to share the remaining twenty-five percent. And it’s even harder for some people no matter where they live. Less than ten percent of venture capital currently goes to female founders, and less than one percent to Black founders. Since new companies—startups—are responsible for net new job creation, it is essential that entrepreneurs everywhere have the opportunity to start and scale companies. Rise of the Rest is about leveling the playing field for everybody, and in the process creating opportunity and jobs for the people and places that have been left behind. This book tells that story and provides a hopeful perspective on the future of America. In The Rise of the Rest: How Entrepreneurs in Surprising Places are Building the New American Dream, Case takes readers on an exhilarating journey into the startup communities that are transforming cities nationwide. Rise of the Rest’s signature road trips, on a big red tour bus, have created significant local and national buzz and spotlighted communities large and small that have committed to a new tech-enabled future. Along the way, Case introduces readers to dozens of entrepreneurs whose inspirational stories of struggle and achievement match the most iconic examples of American invention. To date, Case has traveled to forty-three cities on his Rise of the Rest bus tour and has been featured on 60 Minutes, and in The New York Times, USA TODAY, Fast Company, and The Wall Street Journal. With dedicated venture funds, backed by an iconic group of investors, executives, and entrepreneurs including Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt, Meg Whitman, John Doerr, Sara Blakely, and Ray Dalio, Rise of the Rest also invests in the most promising high-growth startups located anywhere in the US outside of Silicon Valley, New York City, and Boston. The fund has invested in more than 175 companies across more than eighty cities, including: Phoenix, Chattanooga, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Louisville, Baltimore, Columbus, St. Louis, Green Bay, Madison, Buffalo, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Miami, Dallas, Salt Lake City, Omaha, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Nashville, Indianapolis, New Orleans, and dozens of others.

A Clarion Call to Emerging Leaders: Step Up and Lead Now! In True North: Emerging Leaders Edition, renowned leadership expert Bill George and Millennial tech entrepreneur Zach Clayton issue the challenge to emerging leaders—from Gen X to Millennials and Gen Z—to lead their organizations authentically through never-ending crises to make this world a better place for everyone. Emerging leaders do so by discovering their “True North”—who they are—and then finding their “North Star”—their leadership purpose. To navigate today’s complexities, George and Clayton show emerging leaders how to lead with their hearts, not just their heads, with passion, compassion, and moral courage by being true to their values to reach their full potential as they take on great challenges and navigate complex issues. Harvard professor Bill George, with four best-selling books to his credit including the timeless classic True North, is the former CEO of Medtronic who established authentic leadership in 2003. He teams up with Zach Clayton, an emerging leader still amid his own leadership development journey, to give emerging leaders the definitive guide for leading in today’s complex world. The Emerging Leader Edition is filled with dramatic stories from successful leaders such as Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Merck’s Ken Frazier to PepsiCo’s Indra Nooyi and General Motors’ Mary Barra, and emerging leaders like OneTrust’s Kabir Barday and Kanbrick’s Tracy Britt Cool of how they overcame great challenges to build highly successful organizations. The book offers concrete suggestions for: Becoming an authentic leader, equipped to lead inclusively with moral clarity through challenges and crises Cultivating regular introspection to ground yourself with self-awareness, live your values, and use your unique strengths Integrating all aspects of your life—including who you are at home, at work, and in the community Understanding how Millennials are leading more effectively in today’s world Being an inclusive leader prepared to take on fraught issues like stakeholder challenges, racial and sexual equality, and sexual misconduct Knowing when—and how—leaders should speak out on today’s complex public issues The Emerging Leader Edition of True North is the classic guide for every current and aspiring leader to reach their full, authentic potential.

Congressman Ro Khanna offers a revolutionary, “progressive” (James J. Heckman, Nobel Prize winner and professor of economics at the University of Chicago) roadmap to facing America’s digital divide, offering greater economic prosperity to all. In Khanna’s vision, “just as people can move to technology, technology can move to people” (from the foreword by Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate in Economics) where “Khanna envisions redistributing opportunities from coastal cities to rural middle-America…An exciting vision, brilliantly rendered.” (Arlie Russell Hochschild, author of Strangers in Their Own Land). Unequal access to technology and the revenue it creates is one of the most pressing issues in the United States. An economic gulf exists between those who have struck gold in the tech industry and those left behind by the digital revolution; a geographic divide between those in the coastal tech industry and those in the heartland whose jobs have been automated; and existing inequalities in the technological access—students without computers, rural workers with spotty WiFi, and many workers without the luxury to work remotely. Congressman Ro Khanna’s Progressive Capitalism tackles these challenges head-on and imagines how the digital economy can create opportunities for people across the country without uprooting them. Anchored by an approach Khanna calls “progressive capitalism,” he shows how democratizing access to tech can strengthen every sector of economy and culture. By expanding technological jobs nationwide through public and private partnerships, we can close the wealth gap in America and begin to repair the fractured, distrusting relationships that have plagued our country for fall too long. Inspired by his own story born into an immigrant family, Khanna understands how economic opportunity can change the course of a person’s life. Moving deftly between storytelling, policy, and some of the country’s greatest thinkers in political philosophy and economics, Khanna presents a vision we can’t afford to ignore. Progressive Capitalism is a “practical and aspirational” (Kimberlé Crenshaw, professor of law at UCLA and Columbia University) roadmap to how we can seek dignity for every American in an era in which technology shapes every aspect of our lives.

Chosen as one of the best books of 2022 by the Financial Times and the Telegraph. Longlisted for the Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing 'Compelling, powerful and necessary.' Shoshana Zuboff, author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism 'Fascinating' Guardian Without a moment's pause, we share our most intimate thoughts with trillion-dollar tech companies. Their algorithms categorize us and jump to troubling conclusions about who we are. They also shape our everyday thoughts, choices and actions - from who we date to whether we vote. But this is just the latest front in an age-old struggle. Part history and part manifesto, Freedom to Think explores how the powerful have always sought to influence how we think and what we buy. Connecting the dots from Galileo to Alexa, human rights lawyer Susie Alegre charts the history and fragility of our most important human right: freedom of thought. Filled with shocking case-studies across politics, criminal justice, and everyday life, this ground-breaking book shows how our mental freedom is under threat like never before. Bold and radical, Alegre argues that only by recasting our human rights for the digital age can we safeguard our future.

“One of my favorite books of the year. It completely reshaped how I think about information and how and why I take notes.” —Daniel Pink, bestselling author of Drive A revolutionary approach to enhancing productivity, creating flow, and vastly increasing your ability to capture, remember, and benefit from the unprecedented amount of information all around us. For the first time in history, we have instantaneous access to the world’s knowledge. There has never been a better time to learn, to contribute, and to improve ourselves. Yet, rather than feeling empowered, we are often left feeling overwhelmed by this constant influx of information. The very knowledge that was supposed to set us free has instead led to the paralyzing stress of believing we’ll never know or remember enough. Now, this eye-opening and accessible guide shows how you can easily create your own personal system for knowledge management, otherwise known as a Second Brain. As a trusted and organized digital repository of your most valued ideas, notes, and creative work synced across all your devices and platforms, a Second Brain gives you the confidence to tackle your most important projects and ambitious goals. Discover the full potential of your ideas and translate what you know into more powerful, more meaningful improvements in your work and life by Building a Second Brain.