Top 15 Technology Books That Will Change Your Life – Productivity And Fulfillment
This compilation of technology books is a great starting point, especially for those who are overwhelmed and don’t know where to start. Whether your focus is productivity in the workplace, personal fulfillment or even humanity’s very own destiny, these are the books that will change your life.
How did we choose these books?
We chose these books based on critical acclaim, their commercial success and reader ratings. Here are the top 15 technology books that will change your life.
Top 15 Technology Books That Will Change Your Life
Technology is all around us. We can’t escape it, so it’s important that we learn to integrate it into our everyday lives. There are many challenges that are yet to come, too, and it’s also important to be aware of those so you can be fully prepared before they happen.
You might be reading this very article on the computer in your office or on your phone while you’re on the way to a meeting. Understanding technology is crucial to being successful and happy in today’s environment.
These 15 books can help you navigate this tricky landscape. Once you’re done with them, you’re probably going to be more productive and you may feel better and happier in general.
The Inevitable: Understanding The 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future by Kevin Kelly
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Kevin Kelly is a technology connoisseur. He is an author who has published dozens of books, and he is also one the founding executive director of Wired magazine. You may think that’s impressive enough all by itself, but Kelly’s credentials and his depth of technology knowledge become crystal clear when you pick up a copy of his latest book: “The Inevitable: Understanding The 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future.”
Kelly takes great care to spell out how 12 technological forces are working to currently shape our future. The roadmap the author provides is optimistic rather than dark, but that doesn’t make it any less complex. These deep trends, as Kelly himself describes them, are “interacting, cognifying, flowing, screening, accessing, sharing, filtering, remixing, tracking, and questioning.” They also depend on and coexist with each other and their effects are, as such, inexorably linked.
Kelly’s goal is to get us to understand these trends and to embrace them so that we can change our daily relationship with technology in a way that makes our life easier.
The Industries of the Future by Alec Ross
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It’s easy to see why this book is a New York Times bestseller. Alec Ross, a leading innovation expert, brings forth his vision on what is next for the world. With that, he also presents a way to navigate the future.
In this book, Ross takes a look at what our technological future may bring. He analyzes and examines several fields, all of which are going to shape and affect the way our future looks. These fields include cybercrime, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, as well as digital technology.
This book is well-researched and engaging. Innovation is happening, whether we’re prepared for it or not. Once you read this book, you can make sure you’re prepared for it.
The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil
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If you’re interested in Futurology, this book is particularly great. You may have heard of the singularity already, but this book is an optimist’s look at the future. Well, optimist according to the author; other people don’t find the ideas presented in the book quite as comforting as the author himself.
Kurzweil explores what he believes to be the next step in the evolutionary process: the union of human and machine. Once that happens, he believes that our skills and knowledge will be combined so we can share all our wisdom, capacity and speed with each other.
It’s a startling and ambitious book. Whatever side you fall on, once you’re done with this book, your perspective will have definitely changed.
Hit Refresh: The Quest To Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone by Satya Nadella
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Hit Refresh is about the transformation occurring inside Microsoft. From a source at the very heart of Microsoft, Nadella, who is now Microsoft’s CEO, this book outlines both his childhood and how he has made decisions at one of the biggest technology giants in the entire world. This book is an exciting and interesting look into one of this generation’s most quintessential CEOs.
Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action by Simon Sinek
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Simon Sinek’s book explores why some organizations may be more innovative, influential and profitable than others. He starts with why, and then he explores this question by showing how leaders think, act and influence. The framework provided in this book is excellent for any entrepreneur looking to start his or her own business.
Work Rules! Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead by Laslo Bock
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Laslo Bock’s book is an inspiring and refreshing take on how work, well, works. According to Bock, a former head of People Operations at Google, we spend a lot of time at work. It shouldn’t be demotivating and dehumanizing, a fact of life that is unfortunately true for many employees.
The book is a playful manifesto on how work can be better, both for employers and for employees, and a masterful lesson in reaching a balance between creativity and structure.
The book has many lessons, including how to learn from both good and bad employees, how to ensure transparency, and how to provide rewards that aren’t necessarily monetary. From one of the brightest hiring minds in the world, this book is a perfect example of how technology can make your working life easier.
The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World by Simon Winchester
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You already know just what you need to prepare for and how to apply this knowledge to the future, particularly in your workplace. But acquiring a knowledge of history is a very important part of being prepared, because it can give you a framework for why things are the way that they are currently and even for how things are going to develop in the future. This is what Winchester endeavors to teach the reader in this book, and the results are masterful.
He takes the reader back to the Industrial Age, to the fathers of modern technology, including John Wilkinson, Henry Maudslay, Joseph Bramah, Jesse Ramsden and Joseph Whitworth. It slowly moves toward the present, all while presenting important technological questions that we’re still seeking to answer, including just how important precision is for technological advancement.
The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google by Scott Galloway
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Scott Galloway’s New York Times Bestseller explores the power and success of the four most important technological companies in this current world. This isn’t an insider book, and it’s clear that it aims not to have an implicit bias. Galloway, one of the most important business teachers in the world, establishes what the book aims to do early on. Its goals are to establish the reasons for Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google’s success, the reasons that aren’t sold to the public as part of these companies’ public image.
The presence of these companies in day-to-day life makes them impossible to avoid in many countries. It certainly makes them very difficult to boycott. You would have to get away from technology itself to get away from these four giants.
Galloway explores how, exactly, they managed to achieve that level of pervasive success. In doing so, he has ensured other people can apply these lessons to their own businesses.
iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy-and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood-and What That Means for the Rest of Us by Jean M. Twenge
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Yup, that’s a mouthful, but this topic is complex and difficult. That’s what makes how entertaining this book is a surprising success.
Twenge lays out how different iGen is and exactly what needs to be done about it. After all, the gap between this generation and prior generations is particularly sharp and visible. iGen kids don’t grow up as fast, they socialize in different ways from the generations prior to them, they can’t stand intolerance or inequality, and they’re very, very hard to pin down.
The new normal is completely different from the old vanguard. Only by reading this book will you understand this new generation.
The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition by Don Norman
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Norman’s book seeks to explore how things everyone uses are designed. This book is great if you’re at all interested in design, especially in the relationship between certain design principles and how its end user might utilize products.
It also explains why some people might really love a particular design while others hate it. It’s a really interesting look into everyday design, and once you read it, you’ll have a new appreciation for the objects that surround you.
The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World by Brad Stone
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Brad Stone’s book takes a close look at some of the most important newest technological companies out there. His work explores the link between Airbnb and Uber, including how similar their start was, and it delves deeply into the lives of each founder. This book is an enlightening look at two of the biggest and newest technology giants coming out of Silicon Valley.
Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence by Ajay Agrawal
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This book explores exactly what AI might mean for your business, but it also touches on what it’s going to do for your personal life. AI can be a little bit scary for people who don’t know much about it and haven’t been sold the idea that it’s a magic solution to many of society’s current problems. Prediction Machines takes great care to lay out how AI works, especially when it comes to predictions. This book is highly recommended for leaders, and it is certain to help you plan for the future.
Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley by Emily Chang
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Unlike a lot of the books on this list, this one isn’t just a business book. Chang’s book posits the idea that everyone can change the world in Silicon Valley — that is, unless you’re a woman.
Women in tech face a huge amount of challenges. “Brotopia,” the book’s title, is a perfect way to describe many of the tests that they face. Chang outlines how Silicon Valley became sort of a sexist paradise despite its lofty goals. Chang’s book is an exposé on the culture and a lesson in how to shut it down, which makes it a valuable read for anyone interested in technology as an industry.
Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley by Antonio Garcia Martinez
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This book, which was an instant success, is an irreverent expose on what life is like in the tech bubble. Garcia Martinez is an insider, and his book chronicles the evolution of social media and online marketing while also taking great care to reveal how these factors are invading our lives and shaping our future.
This deeply funny take on technology is an interesting read, one that will take you behind all the shine and the image that these companies want you to have of them. For insider knowledge, there’s no need to look any further.
Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World by Mark Miodownik
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Just like technology, it’s very possible that you take all the objects that surround you every day for granted. Not just your phone or your computer, but the desk you work on, the chair you’re sitting on, the very clothes on your back. Things surround us and most of us don’t think very much about them. They’re there to make our life easier and that is a foregone conclusion.
Miodownik explores stuff. It doesn’t sound like technology, but it is exactly what technology is, and in many cases, these materials directly affected the way technology has developed. This interesting book is full of facts and tidbits that are sure to make your life richer and will make you a better conversationalist.
All of the books mentioned above will likely change your life. All you have to do is make sure that they fit your current purpose. You can learn about how work will change through your lifetime, how the giants got to where they are or the history of things. Every book is sure to change your perspective. You just need to decide how much each book will affect your life.
You now have the books that will change your life. Take your pick and enjoy reading!
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Last update on 2024-04-16 at 04:33 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
