The Tech Canon
The Tech Canon
On the benefits of a canon for shared culture, community, and ethos
A few weeks ago a discussion popped up on X about what books constitute the "tech canon" — the books that have heavily influenced Silicon Valley culture over the past 20-30 years. First
asked the question:
Which drove a few days worth of back and forth conversation. Stripe's
replied with one of the most comprehensive lists:
Both this list and many in the replies I broadly agree with. These works come up disproportionately often in the writings and thinkings of all sorts of people in tech — founders, investors, writers. Many of the books are plenty popular in their own right, but have particular resonance in the culture of the tech community. The X thread has a bunch of suggestions beyond Patrick's original list, which I aggregated into a sheet for myself. Many of them I've already got in my actual library or the antilibrary, and I've read maybe a third of them.
The titles cover a broad range from tech history and biographies, to science, physics, design, engineering, and a healthy dose of philosophy. And it certainly feels true to me that the ideas embedded in this canon have influenced the culture, practices, and evolution of the tech industry.
What strikes me most when I think about tech having a "canon" is a question: what other fields could point to a list with containing so much variety and with such consensus behind the levels of influence in its industry?
In others you might find a handful of canonical texts. Finance has Ben Graham's The Intelligent Investor and Warren Buffett and maybe Michael Lewis or Piketty. In medicine there's Gray's Anatomy or the DSM. Education has the likes of Socrates, Dewey, Horace Mann, or Montessori. Most of the examples I can conjure with wider-ranging reading selections would be fields of academia — philosophy or history or english departments.
But do any of these works have the level of standing, or such widespread, recurring influence on their respective fields as the tech canon does in SV culture?
Whether you agree with the macro philosophical leanings of the tech canon or not, it's impressive to see a domain so heavily influenced and motivated by ideas.
What themes consistently appear in the list? To name a few:
Individualism (The Sovereign Individual, Atlas Shrugged)
Entrepreneurialism — we don't need permission to innovate (Elon Musk, Founders at Work)
A push for action over theory (the tech history works like Softwar, Masters of Doom, or The Big Score)
Systems theory (Thinking in Systems)
Optimism and economic growth (Marginal Revolution)
Libertarianism (Seeing Like a State, Cathedral and the Bazaar)
The "Man in the Arena" and general interest in high-agency, "live players" (Theodore Roosevelt, The Power Broker)
Learning and self-improvement (The Hard Thing, The Lean Startup)
What might be the most defining characteristic of tech is a profound interest in ideas. For all of Silicon Valley's (largely deserved) reputation for reckless technological progress — "move fast and break things" — it's a remarkably introspective bunch. It's likely the exception, not the norm, to see a community so interested in exploring its own intellectual roots and history.
There's power in building a shared language when fostering a particular community ethos. This collection creates a common set of references that provide a shorthand for communication. When a founder references the Traitorous Eight or Xerox PARC or Robert Caro, it's a good bet that others can already pick up the thread. When Marc Andreessen lists books he's been reading, I instantly get a sense for his interests and where he's coming from intellectually having some familiarity with the canon and canon-adjacent works. Defining a canon creates a cohesiveness to the culture. In the same way we talk about the "western canon" as a set of cultural touchstones. The tech canon is a list of subcultural touchstones.
One can quibble with either what did or didn't make the list.
What's more interesting to me as an exercise is coming up with books that should be more influential than they are — what you'd like to see circulated and take hold in the tech community.
wrote his own list reacting to Patrick's. He makes the case that the classic works from the humanities — think Shakespeare, Sophocles, Dickens, Thoreau — don't have the influence he argues they should. And to an extent I agree with him. Most of the books he references are legendary and important, and would be beneficial for anyone to read to become more in touch with the human experience. Ted's knowledge of the classics is mind-bogglingly deep. (I highly recommend his recent Guide to the Humanities)But I think he's a bit unfair in his anti-tech stance, dismissing much of the list as pop science and "trend of the month" journalism, which I don't agree with at all. There are a few I think are a little too contemporary and won't hold up over the long term, but many of them are biographies and histories that will have staying power for generations, and serve as documents of what happened during a defining era of history and culture. What happened at PARC, Lockheed, and Oracle will be interesting to those in business 100 years from now.
Where I can agree is considering his list an addendum to the aforementioned canon. As a way of saying "Yes, those are your de facto influences today, but your community would be better off if you explored these, too."
It's a yes-and rather than a no-but.
Regardless of your views on this admittedly polarizing list, I love that the community I swim in puts a high premium on ideas. As a bibliophile myself, reading is one of the superpowers we all have for learning and creating.
All fields of work should promote their own influential canon.