Makers

The New Industrial Revolution

By: Chris Anderson

Narrated by: René Ruiz

Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

Wired magazine editor and best-selling author 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 - creating "the long tail of things".

©2012 Chris Anderson (P)2012 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Chris understands that the owners of the means of production get to decide what is produced. And now you're the owner. This book will change your life, whether you read it or not, so I suggest you get in early." (Seth Godin, best-selling author of Tribes and Purple Cow)

"A visionary preview of the next technological revolution. If you want to know where the future is headed, start here." (Tom Rath, author of StrengthsFinder 2.0)

"Makers is must read for understanding the transformative changes that are shaping, and will shape, the future of inventing." (Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality)

Go forth and make stuff.

The world is changing. And the revolution of how people create, manufacture and design is a big part of it. This movement alone could bring manufacturing back to the US in a big way. I think everyone who is getting out of college in the next four years should read this (and other books written by Anderson) to fully understand how the business and creative world is changing.

Simple Story Evokes Complex Reaction

I've waited 4 ½ years for this book. I think of this as the third book in the trilogy: The Long Tail, Free, and now Makers. When Free came out I wrote that I thought that the next book would be about open source hardware. Now we know this was correct, but so much has happened in the intermediate 4 1/2 years that it now seems somewhat mundane. I was at the most recent Detroit Maker Fair and there were 30K people. The maker movement has serious momentum. If you’re unaware of the Makers this is an excellent introduction, but it may be kind of old news.

His argument for giving away the design but charging for hardware is unsettling. There seems to be an equally compelling argument for the reverse; that is, giving away the hardware and charging for the design. He’s in touch with what’s mostly working in 2012. However, it’s at odds with what worked in the past. I kept thinking about IBM and the PC. And no satisfying theory really justifies any choice of business model.

Finally, he argues that this is great for America and probably disastrous for China. Design will be all that’s left of manufacturing and America will own that. I agree. But the justification for this belief is far from satisfying. My reading of Christensen suggests that controlling the low end of the market allows you to move upscale market … The dynamics are complicated …

How Innovations Become Products on the Shelf

Where does Makers rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Makers is a keeper. It is not riveting, but it is a book that stimulates thought. It would be a great 'read' for a study on innovation and change.

Were the concepts of this book easy to follow, or were they too technical?

Easy to follow - well explained when the stories might have been foreign to the reader's experience.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Rene Ruiz?

Yes

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

From Bolts to Bytes

Any additional comments?

Worth your time unless you are looking strictly for entertainment!

Hobbyists out to make a dent in the universe

A well written book on the niche subject of making stuff using digital and 3D printing technologies. A likely read for hackers, people who like to tear things apart to find out how it works inside, people who want to make things with their computer, and aspirating product designers doing really cool stuff. Also, the author provides a good view into the manufacturing ways of the future (and its not just in China).

love the subject. But now in 2022 it's over 10 yea

it is a great book about
the background of the maker economy.
but dated. It is interesting to hear the hopes and predictions in 2010 that we would have in the future. But in 2022 you have a few spoiler alerts. You know which businesses failed, 3d printers are still a geek thing to tune to perfection.

Fantastic!

Where does Makers rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

A fantastic book about the present and future of design & manufacturing on the local level. Incredibly engaging book.

What other book might you compare Makers to and why?

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson would be comparable regarding design & manufacturing.

Which scene was your favorite?

all

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

not relevant

Any additional comments?

I want to buy the hard copy now.

Useful way to reset some of my thinking

What made the experience of listening to Makers the most enjoyable?

This book helped me get out of some of my stagnant thinking. I have been a small manufacturer for 7 years, making my sole living this way. It was helpful to take a break and listen to some variations of someone's experience. There are no real earth shattering concepts presented, but it covers many useful concepts that can be forgotten by those that have been "makers" for a while. I was happy to get more than a giddy overview of how a 3D printer can make anyone an inventor - it covers the thinking and resources needed to make something that is real. 3D printing is .001% of product development and this book appropriately only spends a little time on that topic and explaining its limits as well.

Any additional comments?

I will say that the author tends to gloss over the gritty and detailed reality of designing, making, and marketing products on a small to modest scale. It is indeed easier than ever before, but it is a mind numbing, back breaking, and financially risky career path. The book emphasizes the glamorous victories without much said about the hard core challenge of building a multi-discipline super skill set to create something and form a business around it based largely on "Google" knowledge. Victories are hard to come by and failures can be financial disasters that take years to recover from.

Yes!

Would you listen to Makers again? Why?

A classic listen. The ideas discussed help listeners think about how the world is going to be shaped. It will be interesting to see how the ideas, parallel with large tech companies, think Amazon Locker and Bufferbox, that are improving logistics, and if local libraries begin to purchase this printers.

A Powerful Intersection Between Bits and Atoms

Lots of things I already knew, many things I did not (for instance, the founding of Square and the strategic positioning intersection between bits and atoms). Chris Anderson is the author of The Long Tail — also called ‘power law distribution’ — which has been adapted by other great minds in business and entrepreneurship; such as Peter Thiel, Nassim Taleb, and Seth Godin. Although this book was written in 2012, we are only on the cusp of many of its predictions; which are just starting pick up traction en masse in 2020. This is especially true in wake of COVID-19, and how the pandemic has shifted both supply-side and production-side demand via public sentiment and heated geopolitics.

The role of bits vs. atoms is an extremely important concept that almost NO ONE else is talking about — except for Thiel — who never misses a chance to languish on the fact that progress in atoms has severely stagnated compared to that of progress in bits (in his own view, at least). The reason for the hyper-focus on bits rather than atoms, especially by investors in Tech (which is now a buzzword that has become synonymous with software, programming and code) is because they represent the low-hanging fruit of wealth creation via digital products with zero marginal costs of reproduction + infinite leverage; all of which frictionlessly flow over vast data networks allowed by undersea fiber optic cables — which form the foundation or the plumbing behind the global internet as we know it (or as Silicon Valley star investor Marc Andreeson puts it “software is eating the world.”).

Read per Jack Ma’s recommendation. Did not disappoint!

(p.s. I personally ended reading the last 1/4 at 0.8x speed, as there was so much content to take in and the narrator seemed almost rushed in his delivery)

Christopher Armstrong,
Author of The Maker’s Field Guide: The Art & Science of Making Anything Imaginable

Very Thought Provoking

Definitely a book worth reading. I wonderful glimpse into what will be the new normal of tomorrow.