The Innovators Author Walter Isaacson in Conversation with Museum CEO John Hollar

The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

Following his biography of Steve Jobs, award-winning author Walter Isaacson became fascinated with other compelling stories of the men and women who have led the global revolution of the Information Age. The Innovators is his revealing account of the revolutionaries who created the computer and the Internet, yet it begins in Victorian England. It is destined to be a standard history of the digital revolution and an indispensable guide to how innovation really happens.

Isaacson asks: What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs—but not others—to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail? Isaacson begins with Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron’s daughter, who pioneered computer programming in the 1840s. He explores the fascinating personalities that created the digital revolution, including Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, John von Neumann, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Robert Noyce, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, and Larry Page. In his typically energetic and insightful style, Isaacson goes behind the scenes to explore how their minds worked and what made them so inventive. It’s also a narrative of how these innovators’ abilities to collaborate and master the art of teamwork made them even more creative.

Join John Hollar for an in-depth conversation with Isaacson on this new book, which continues his exploration of innovation and genius, from Jobs to Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein. We are very pleased to welcome Walter Isaacson back to our stage.

Kepler's Books will be on-site selling copies of The Innovators before and after the program.

We are very pleased that KQED Radio will be recording tonight's program for future broadcast.

And, CSPAN Book TV is going to be on-site recording the program for future broadcast.

This event is part of the Museum's acclaimed Revolutionaries speaker series, featuring renowned innovators, business and technology leaders, and authors in enthralling conversations often with leading journalists. Our audiences learn about the process of innovation, its risks and rewards, and failure that led to ultimate success.