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Gutenberg the Geek
- Narrated by: Jeff Jarvis
- Length: 39 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Johannes Gutenberg was our first geek, the original technology entrepreneur, who had to grapple with all the challenges a Silicon Valley startup faces today. Jeff Jarvis tells Gutenberg's story from an entrepreneurial perspective, examining how he overcame technology hurdles, how he operated with the secrecy of a Steve Jobs, but then shifted to openness, how he raised capital and mitigated risk, and how, in the end, his cash flow and equity structure did him in. This is also the inspiring story of a great disruptor - which is what makes Gutenberg the patron saint of entrepreneurs.
Jeff Jarvis is the author of Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live and What Would Google Do?: Reverse-Engineering the Fastest Growing Company in the History of the World. He directs the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism.
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What listeners say about Gutenberg the Geek
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Performance
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- John J. Sviokla
- 05-21-15
Concise, precise, and insightful
This essay is a must reading for any technologist or entrepreneur. Jarvis does a fantastic job of reframing the story of Gutenberg from the modern point of view of Silicon Valley and the analogy not only works but is inspiring. Understanding Gutenberg's trials and tribulations in terms of the technology, the capital he needed, and the deals he cut are fascinating. Perhaps most importantly, Jarvis notes that because of losing his invention to his investor Gutenberg began to teach the world about how to use his invention. The first open source revolution.
It was a pleasure to listen to it.
1 person found this helpful
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- Paul
- 10-31-14
Decent précis on printing as disruptive technology
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
Sure, if they're interested in the history of the printing press and/or disruptive technologies.
Did the narration match the pace of the story?
Yep.
Do you think Gutenberg the Geek needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?
Nope. The proper next step would be to read a more drawn out history of Gutenberg.
Any additional comments?
Some of the entrepreneurial comparisons to Silicon Valley are tiresome, though that's probably my own personal distaste for the economic and cultural canonization of tech CEOs. At the same time, comparisons made to technologies like the Internet and web search (e.g., Google) make this book (well, essay) worth reading. Most interesting to me is how the printing press not only heralded an unprecedented, widespread circulation of ideas, but also that many of those ideas were seen as unsavory, unscrupulous, or even illegal. Today, we see the similar trends in social networks and easy-access publishing tools that give ideas an immediate global reach (e.g., ISIL propaganda). Decades passed before the effects of the printing press were even partially fathomed by those whose lives it touched. When will the dust of the information age finally settle?
1 person found this helpful
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Historically the Christian Reformation/ Martin Luther of Germany was ...
Historically the Christian Reformation/ Martin Luther of Germany was a real big reason for his success!
That was not a key part of the book,hence I list interest.
Sam
Romans 3:9-28
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- Adam Slater
- 09-13-21
Fun and easy
Fun and easy to get in the way of the chemical uses the shop now I have
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- Debbie
- 09-09-21
Launching a Legacy
Entrepreneur, inventor, printer and publisher, Jonannes Gutenberg has long been known as the printer of the Gutenberg Bible. This short listen is noteworthy in crediting him with being a first in technology, i.e. a geek, and in fact, in his time, he was regarded as a weirdo. 😉 Never financially successful during his own lifetime, his discoveries and printing technologies fed the growing Renaissance. It greatly greatly facilitated scientific publishing. This is a fun listen and a different way of looking at Gutenberg and his accomplishments.
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- P. Schommer
- 01-07-21
Short & sweet
What an easy listen! It’s largely a collection of facts, but it’s told as a story about the printing life of JG. Quick and easy to digest.
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Performance
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Story
- Amazon Customer
- 09-13-20
Required reading (listening)
Jeff does a great job simply and quickly describing the impact of Gutenberg and the importance of open innovation.
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Performance
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Story
- Emerson F Lane III
- 02-03-15
A little dry at times
But short and sweet. I'm a Jeff Jarvis fan though and through. Thanks for this.
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- Thomas Brown
- 09-23-21
Way too short...
Although the content in this 40 minute audiobook is good, there is so SO much more about Gutenberg, his life and the impact of his work that could have went into this. I'm very glad this was free through the Plus Catalogue or else i'd have been wanting my credit back.
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Becoming Steve Jobs early on
- By Amazon Customer. on 02-24-22
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Bill Gates: The Life, Lessons & Rules for Success
- By: Influential Individuals
- Narrated by: David Margittai
- Length: 1 hr and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Bill Gates is the most influential and recognizable name in the technology industry to date. He's a business magnate, avid investor, big philanthropist, and author of multiple books. He has made it into the top 0.1 percent and it would be an understatement to say Bill Gates is a success story. Some of his greatest moments arose on this journey to success and through studying his journey; it can help us better walk our own path. This book will take you through his successes, failures and teachable moments providing the key principles we can incorporate into our own lives for results.
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Just a History Lesson
- By Amazon Customer. on 02-24-22
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Printer's Error
- Irreverent Stories from Book History
- By: Rebecca Romney, J. P. Romney
- Narrated by: J.P. Romney
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Since the Gutenberg Bible first went on sale in 1455, printing has been viewed as one of the highest achievements of human innovation. But the march of progress hasn't been smooth; downright bizarre is more like it. Printer's Error chronicles some of the strangest and most humorous episodes in the history of Western printing. Take, for example, the Gutenberg Bible. While the book is regarded as the first printed work in the Western world, Gutenberg's name doesn't appear anywhere on it.
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Porn for Ye Old Bibliophiles
- By George M. Liveakos on 03-24-17
By: Rebecca Romney, and others
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From Silk to Silicon
- The Story of Globalization Through Ten Extraordinary Lives
- By: Jeffrey E. Garten
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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From Silk to Silicon tells the story of who these men and women were, what they did, how they did it, and how their achievements continue to shape our world today.
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Fantastic Journey
- By Michael on 06-06-16
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Thomas Edison: A Captivating Guide to the Life of a Genius Inventor
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Duke Holm
- Length: 2 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Thomas Edison was born into a hard-working but attentive family. He struggled in school and became deaf at an early age. Born on February 11, 1847, Edison would become, arguably, the best-known American inventor of all time. His invention of the light bulb was one of more than 1,000 patents he held during his lifetime. Others included the phonograph, the electrical grid, and motion pictures. His work changed the way we see and hear the world around us.
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Understandable
- By Ezra on 04-14-18
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Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy
- By: Tim Harford
- Narrated by: Roger Davis
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy paints an epic picture of change in an intimate way by telling the stories of the tools, people, and ideas that had far-reaching consequences for all of us. From the plough to artificial intelligence, from Gillette's disposable razor to IKEA's Billy bookcase, best-selling author and Financial Times columnist Tim Harford recounts each invention's own curious, surprising, and memorable story.
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Socialist propaganda, slickly done.
- By Chandler Bridges on 04-17-19
By: Tim Harford
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Move Fast and Break Things
- How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy
- By: Jonathan Taplin
- Narrated by: Jonathan Taplin
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Move Fast and Break Things tells the story of how a small group of libertarian entrepreneurs began in the 1990s to hijack the original decentralized vision of the Internet, in the process creating three monopoly firms - Facebook, Amazon, and Google - that now determine the future of the music, film, television, publishing, and news industries.
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Against progress and libertarians.
- By Matthew S. on 07-20-17
By: Jonathan Taplin
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The Beginner’s Guide to Crypto Art and NFT
- What the New Rich Investor Teach Their Followers About Art and Contemporary Artists, an Unmissable Overview of the Revolution that Is Going On
- By: Mike Armstrong
- Narrated by: NFT Cryptocurrency Expert
- Length: 3 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Crypto art has exploded all over the world, and are you struggling to learn more? Many contemporary artists and big brands have been involved in an unprecedented speculative vortex, creating new horizons. Big investors in the art, finance, and cryptocurrency markets are following with strong interest the evolution of NFTs (non fungible tokens). The economic weight of crypto art is bound to grow, becoming a great new earning opportunity.
By: Mike Armstrong
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The World Is Flat
- Further Updated and Expanded
- By: Thomas L. Friedman
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 27 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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With the "flattening" of the globe, has the world gotten too small and too fast for human beings and their political systems to adjust in a stable manner? Now in a third edition with a new preface, Friedman's account of the flattening of the earth is a modern classic.
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If you like cliches...
- By Jonathan Shultz on 09-08-07
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Makers
- The New Industrial Revolution
- By: Chris Anderson
- Narrated by: René Ruiz
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Chris Anderson takes you to the front lines of a new industrial revolution as today’s entrepreneurs, using open source design and 3-D printing, bring manufacturing to the desktop. In an age of custom-fabricated, do-it-yourself product design and creation, the collective potential of a million garage tinkerers and enthusiasts is about to be unleashed, driving a resurgence of American manufacturing. A generation of "Makers" using the Web’s innovation model will help drive the next big wave in the global economy, as the new technologies of digital design and rapid prototyping gives everyone the power to invent.
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Good basic information, but not a lot of good info
- By Tarik Y. on 11-30-12
By: Chris Anderson