Coders
The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World
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Narrated by:
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René Ruiz
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By:
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Clive Thompson
About this listen
Hello, world.
Facebook's algorithms shaping the news. Self-driving cars roaming the streets. Revolution on Twitter and romance on Tinder. We live in a world constructed of code - and coders are the ones who built it for us. From acclaimed tech writer Clive Thompson comes a brilliant anthropological reckoning with the most powerful tribe in the world today, computer programmers, in a book that interrogates who they are, how they think, what qualifies as greatness in their world, and what should give us pause. They are the most quietly influential people on the planet, and Coders shines a light on their culture.
In pop culture and media, the people who create the code that rules our world are regularly portrayed in hackneyed, simplified terms, as ciphers in hoodies. Thompson goes far deeper, dramatizing the psychology of the invisible architects of the culture, exploring their passions and their values, as well as their messy history. In nuanced portraits, Coders takes us close to some of the great programmers of our time, including the creators of Facebook's News Feed, Instagram, Google's cutting-edge AI, and more. Speaking to everyone from revered "10X" elites to neophytes, back-end engineers, and front-end designers, Thompson explores the distinctive psychology of this vocation - which combines a love of logic, an obsession with efficiency, the joy of puzzle-solving, and a superhuman tolerance for mind-bending frustration.
Along the way, Coders thoughtfully ponders the morality and politics of code, including its implications for civic life and the economy. Programmers shape our everyday behavior: When they make something easy to do, we do more of it. When they make it hard or impossible, we do less of it. Thompson wrestles with the major controversies of our era, from the "disruption" fetish of Silicon Valley to the struggle for inclusion by marginalized groups.
In his accessible, erudite style, Thompson unpacks the surprising history of the field, beginning with the first coders - brilliant and pioneering women, who, despite crafting some of the earliest personal computers and programming languages, were later written out of history. Coders introduces modern crypto-hackers fighting for your privacy, AI engineers building eerie new forms of machine cognition, teenage girls losing sleep at 24/7 hackathons, and unemployed Kentucky coal-miners learning a new career.
At the same time, the book deftly illustrates how programming has become a marvelous new art form - a source of delight and creativity, not merely danger. To get as close to his subject as possible, Thompson picks up the thread of his own long-abandoned coding skills as he reckons with what superb programming looks like.
To understand the world today, we need to understand code and its consequences. With Coders, Thompson gives a definitive look into the heart of the machine.
©2019 Clive Thompson (P)2019 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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“In this revealing exploration of programming, programmers, and their far-reaching influence, Wired columnist Thompson opens up an insular world and explores its design philosophy’s consequences, some of them unintended. Through interviews and anecdotes, Thompson expertly plumbs the temperament and motivations of programmers.... [Coders] contains possibly the best argument yet for how social media maneuvers users into more extreme political positions..... Impressive in its clarity and thoroughness, Thompson’s survey shines a much-needed light on a group of people who have exerted a powerful effect on almost every aspect of the modern world.” (Publishers Weekly)
“Fascinating. Thompson is an excellent writer and his subjects are themselves gripping.... [W]hat Thompson does differently is to get really close to the people he writes about: it’s the narrative equivalent of Technicolor, 3D and the microscope.... People who interact with coders routinely, as colleagues, friends or family, could benefit tremendously from these insights.” (Nature)
“With an anthropologist’s eye, [Thompson] outlines [coders’] different personality traits, their history and cultural touchstones. He explores how they live, what motivates them and what they fight about. By breaking down what the actual world of coding looks like...he removes the mystery and brings it into the legible world for the rest of us to debate. Human beings and their foibles are the reason the internet is how it is - for better and often, as this book shows, for worse.” (The New York Times Book Review)
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Buying groceries, tracking our health, finding a date: whatever we want to do, odds are that we can now do it online. But few of us ask how all these digital products are designed, or why. It's time we change that. Many of the services we rely on are full of oversights, biases, and downright ethical nightmares. Chatbots that harass women. Signup forms that fail anyone who's not straight. Social media sites that send peppy messages about dead relatives. Algorithms that put more black people behind bars.
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Pretty good but not complete
- By Casey on 10-29-17
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The Filter Bubble
- What the Internet Is Hiding from You
- By: Eli Pariser
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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In December 2009, Google began customizing its search results for each user. Instead of giving you the most broadly popular result, Google now tries to predict what you are most likely to click on. According to MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser, Google's change in policy is symptomatic of the most significant shift to take place on the Web in recent years: the rise of personalization.
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Now in the top 3 best books I've ever read
- By Brian Esserlieu on 05-26-11
By: Eli Pariser
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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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Story
When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, what will they say was the most crucial development in the first few years of the twenty-first century? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations?
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If you like cliches...
- By Jonathan Shultz on 09-08-07
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No Better Time
- The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet
- By: Molly Knight Raskin
- Narrated by: Christine Marshall
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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No Better Time tells of a young, driven mathematical genius who wrote a set of algorithms that would create a faster, better Internet. It's the story of a beautiful friendship between a loud, irreverent student and his soft-spoken MIT professor, of a husband and father who spent years struggling to make ends meet only to become a billionaire almost overnight with the success of Akamai Technologies, the Internet content delivery network he cofounded with his mentor.
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An Overlooked Hero of 9-11
- By Jean on 05-27-16
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Thinking Machines
- The Quest for Artificial Intelligence - and Where It's Taking Us Next
- By: Luke Dormehl
- Narrated by: Gus Brown
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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When most of us think about artificial intelligence, our minds go straight to cyborgs, robots, and sci-fi thrillers where machines take over the world. But the truth is that artificial intelligence is already among us. It exists in our smartphones, fitness trackers, and refrigerators that tell us when the milk will expire. In some ways the future people dreamed of at the World's Fair in the 1960s is already here. We're teaching our machines how to think like humans, and they're learning at an incredible rate.
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Mostly platitudes with no depth
- By Gary on 03-24-17
By: Luke Dormehl
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Where Wizards Stay Up Late
- The Origins of the Internet
- By: Katie Hafner, Matthew Lyon
- Narrated by: Mark Douglas Nelson
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Twenty-five years ago, it didn't exist. Today, 20 million people worldwide are surfing the Net. Where Wizards Stay Up Late is the exciting story of the pioneers responsible for creating the most talked about, most influential, and most far-reaching communications breakthrough since the invention of the telephone. In the 1960s, when computers where regarded as mere giant calculators, J.C.R. Licklider at MIT saw them as the ultimate communications devices.
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Absolutely fascinating and we'll researched
- By Elsa Braun on 10-01-16
By: Katie Hafner, and others
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Now You See It
- How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn
- By: Cathy N. Davidson
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Duke University gave free iPods to the freshman class in 2003, critics said they were wasting their money. Yet when the students in practically every discipline invented academic uses for the music players, suddenly the idea could be seen in a new light - as an innovative way to turn learning on its head. Using cutting-edge research on the brain, Cathy N. Davidson show how attention blindness has produced one of our society's greatest challenges.
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3 Reasons to Read
- By Joshua Kim on 05-06-12
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Program or Be Programmed
- Ten Commands for a Digital Age
- By: Douglas Rushkoff
- Narrated by: Douglas Rushkoff
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In 10 chapters, composed of 10 "commands", Rushkoff provides cyber enthusiasts and technophobes alike with the guidelines to navigate the digital new universe. In this spirited, accessible poetics of new media, Rushkoff picks up where Marshall McLuhan left off, helping listeners to recognize programming as the new literacy of the digital age - and as a template through which to see beyond social conventions and power structures that have vexed us for centuries.
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Good book, but with some crazy ranting
- By Bjarne on 02-05-15
By: Douglas Rushkoff
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Whiplash
- How to Survive Our Faster Future
- By: Joi Ito, Jeff Howe
- Narrated by: James Foster
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Today, not only is everything digital getting faster, cheaper, and smaller at an exponential rate, we also have the Internet. When these two revolutions - one in technology and the other in communications - joined, an explosive force was unleashed that changed the very nature of innovation. And with any change, we have seen many strategic blunders and extraordinary learning curves along the way.
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Just general advice on how to survive
- By A. Yoshida on 09-01-17
By: Joi Ito, and others
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Data-ism
- The Revolution Transforming Decision Making, Consumer Behavior, and Almost Everything Else
- By: Steve Lohr
- Narrated by: Steve Lohr
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Coal, iron ore, and oil were the key productive assets that fueled the Industrial Revolution. Today data is the vital raw material of the information economy. The explosive abundance of this digital asset, more than doubling every two years, is creating a new world of opportunity and challenge. Data-ism is about this next phase, in which vast, Internet-scale data sets are used for discovery and prediction in virtually every field. It is a journey across this emerging world with people, illuminating narrative examples, and insights.
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More business case than serious analysis
- By Godfried Gubbels on 06-03-15
By: Steve Lohr
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Women in Tech
- Take Your Career to the Next Level with Practical Advice and Inspiring Stories
- By: Tarah Wheeler
- Narrated by: Tarah Wheeler
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Story
Geared toward women who are considering getting into tech, or those already in a tech job who want to take their career to the next level, this book combines practical career advice and inspiring personal stories from successful female tech professionals Brianna Wu, Angie Chang, Keren Elazari, Katie Cunningham, Miah Johnson, Kristin Toth Smith, and Kamilah Taylor. Written by a female startup CEO and featuring a host of other successful contributors.
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Fantastic, motivating and superb advice!
- By EuropeanCaliGRL on 12-29-17
By: Tarah Wheeler
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You Only Have to Be Right Once
- The Unprecedented Rise of the Instant Tech Billionaires
- By: Randall Lane
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Over the last three years, Forbes has published in depth profiles of this new batch of billionaires, including the founders of Spotify, Dropbox, Tumblr, and Twitter. Now, in a compilation introduced and updated by Forbes editor Randall Lane, fans and critics alike will get a comprehensive look at who these super-entrepreneurs are and what they say about their own success and their plans for the future.
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Awesome book!
- By Jamal Love on 06-17-15
By: Randall Lane
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Automate This
- How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World
- By: Christopher Steiner
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It used to be that to diagnose an illness, interpret legal documents, analyze foreign policy, or write a newspaper article you needed a human being with specific skills - and maybe an advanced degree or two. These days, high-level tasks are increasingly being handled by algorithms that can do precise work not only with speed but also with nuance. These "bots" started with human programming and logic, but now their reach extends beyond what their creators ever expected.
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good start, book runs out of sustenace
- By RealTruth on 02-15-13
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The Formula
- How Algorithms Solve all our Problems…and Create More
- By: Luke Dormehl
- Narrated by: Daniel Weyman
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
A fascinating guided tour of the complex, fast-moving, and influential world of algorithms - what they are, why they’re such powerful predictors of human behavior, and where they’re headed next. Algorithms exert an extraordinary level of influence on our everyday lives - from dating websites and financial trading floors, through to online retailing and internet searches - Google's search algorithm is now a more closely guarded commercial secret than the recipe for Coca-Cola.
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Not about algorithms. Not an original book.
- By Landon Rordam on 12-02-14
By: Luke Dormehl
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Group Genius
- The Creative Power of Collaboration
- By: Keith Sawyer
- Narrated by: Jonathan Marosz
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this authoritative and fascinating new audiobook, Keith Sawyer, a psychologist at Washington University, tears down some of the most popular myths about creativity and erects new principles in their place. He reveals that creativity is always collaborative: even when you're alone. Sawyer's audiobook is filled with compelling stories about the inventions that changed our world.
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Worth reading
- By Glenn on 12-29-10
By: Keith Sawyer
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An excellent and entertaining technical book
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What entrepreneur or founder doesn't aspire to build the next Amazon, Facebook, or Airbnb? Yet those who actually manage to do so are exceedingly rare. So what separates the start-ups that get disrupted and disappear from the ones who grow to become global giants? The secret is blitzscaling: a set of techniques for scaling up at a dizzying pace that blows competitors out of the water.
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not much here.
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Great book
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What listeners say about Coders
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Austin
- 09-14-22
really interesting engaging content
every chapter was full of interesting stories about the culture and history of programming. I loved it. one of my favorite books.
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- Liz R.
- 12-22-22
Really enjoyed this
Interesting information and background from a less technical more just entertaining place. I really enjoyed it.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Brian Hamachek
- 05-15-19
Accurate account of the people that write software
As a 33 year old software engineer living in Silicon Valley, I can honestly say that this is one of the few accurate descriptions of who coders are.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Tim
- 07-19-19
Excellent, well-researched information
This is a great listen for both coders and non-coders alike. I was impressed with the extensive research and interviews done for this book. The author does a good job of getting multiple perspectives on a wide range of topics related to coding. As a coder myself, much of this book was already familiar to me. But I still learned new things, and was able to see myself and my industry through a more objective lens.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Erika Parker
- 05-18-19
great introduction to coding world
good for those considering the world of coding for themselves or their children, sharing prospects, insights into work environments, personality fits, and resources.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Andres
- 09-21-20
As a non techie I learned a lot
As a non-techie I learned quite a bit about the industry through this book. Now that I'm in software it's been very interesting to get to know the types of people that have thrived in this environment. I must say that reading it doesn't necessarily give me a ton of Hope for the world, but at least I know what I'm up against.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Shawn A. Bumgarner
- 07-04-19
Great story - well researched!
I thought the writer covered the topic in depth- I will be listening to this one again someday I’m sure!
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- Ray Caruso
- 02-28-21
Some interesting material
The book contains some interesting material, but wastes too much time on political correctness. Yes, talk about women who excel in coding, but don't spend half of the book lamenting that the percentage of women coders doesn't perfectly match that of the overall population.
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- Will Theall
- 09-03-22
Disappointing
Author interjects his leftist political views at every opportunity. Unfortunately it takes the reader out of the story. Why does everything have to be political nowadays?
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2 people found this helpful
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- Joe D'Amico
- 09-09-19
For every Coder
Fascinating insights into the psychology, history and future of what being a computer programmer is all about.
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