Recommended Reading - Great Power Competition, the Birth of the Internet, Economic Effects of COVID-19, and more
10 Books to Read and Discuss
Silicon Nation is a platform for entrepreneurs, investors, national security professionals and leaders who care about the future of America. Here are a few books that have come up in recent conversations in our community - feel free to recommend others in the comment section.
The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower
For more than forty years, the United States has played an indispensable role helping the Chinese government build a booming economy, develop its scientific and military capabilities, and take its place on the world stage, in the belief that China's rise will bring us cooperation, diplomacy, and free trade. But what if the "China Dream" is to replace us, just as America replaced the British Empire, without firing a shot? Based on interviews with Chinese defectors and newly declassified, previously undisclosed national security documents, The Hundred-Year Marathon reveals China's secret strategy to supplant the United States as the world's dominant power, and to do so by 2049, the one-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic.
Government Venture Capital: A Case Study of the In-Q-Tel Model
The CIA addressed their inability to procure the cutting-edge technologies needed to meet their mission requirements and adopted an innovative acquisition strategy to bridge the gap. They engaged the IT sector through In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm that invests Agency money in companies that could produce commercially viable technologies to fill the Intelligence Community's (IC) pressing IT shortfalls. This thesis explores two aspects of the In-Q-Tel model, whether In-Q-Tel creates relationships between the IC and promising technology companies that would not have occurred otherwise, and the contributions In-Q-Tel makes to its portfolio companies that contribute to their success.
Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed
The onetime director of Lockheed's Skunk Works, the top-secret facility that developed the U-2 spy plane and the stealth fighter, reveals the behind-the-scenes drama involved in the development of the military's aerial technology.
The ARPAnet Sourcebook: The Unpublished Foundations of the Internet
Beginning in 1967 the US Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) office sponsored development of a "heterogeneous" network compatible with computers from any manufacturer. That R&D effort, one of the most successful in history, resulted in the on-time, on-budget construction of the revolutionary ARPANET, the immediate predecessor of today's Internet. The ARPANET Sourcebook: The Unpublished Foundations of the Internet reproduces the seminal papers, reports, and RFCs that led to the birth of modern network computing.
The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley
Today, PayPal’s founders and earliest employees are considered the technology industry’s most powerful network. Since leaving PayPal, they have formed, funded, and advised the leading companies of our era, including Tesla, Facebook, YouTube, SpaceX, Yelp, Palantir, and LinkedIn, among many others. The story of where they first started has gone largely untold. Before igniting the commercial space race or jumpstarting social media’s rise, they were the unknown creators of a scrappy online payments start-up called PayPal. The book describes PayPal’s turbulent early days.
Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology
Microchips are the new oil—the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everything—from missiles to microwaves, smartphones to the stock market—runs on chips. Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the #1 superpower. Now, America's edge is slipping, undermined by competitors in Taiwan, Korea, Europe, and, above all, China. Today, as Chip War reveals, China, which spends more money each year importing chips than it spends importing oil, is pouring billions into a chip-building initiative to catch up to the US. At stake is America's military superiority and economic prosperity.