RaveNew York Journal of BooksGary Pisano’s masterful book, Creative Construction, is...a welcome addition...both an analysis of how many large companies are innovative and a playbook for what they can do to become even more innovative. Pisano ... provides a detailed roadmap for how large organizations can become and stay innovative. As such, this book is not for everyone, although it is well written and a compelling read. But anyone involved in managing any organization, large or small, is likely to find much to appreciate in Creative Construction ... In closing Pisano rightly asks, \'...The question is whether we are up to the task of innovation in the current century.\' If more people, especially organizational managers, read Creative Construction, the odds of the answer to this question is yes, will go up significantly.
Samuel I Schwartz
PanThe New York Journal of BooksPicking up Sam Schwartz’ No One at the Wheel one expects to learn how autonomous vehicles (AVs) actually work, what companies were developing them, and when we are likely to see them. Unfortunately, this is not the case, because No One at the Wheel is not so much a book about AVs but a critique of them, particularly how they will purportedly degrade urban living—at least the kind of urban living Schwartz values ... To start with, Schwartz can’t seem to make up his mind about the impacts of AV, regularly contradicting himself ... Schwartz also seems to have limited understanding of the actual technology ... Surprisingly Swartz gives almost no attention to the vast safety benefits of AVs ... it dismisses the important questions society needs to face as AVs emerge ... No One at the Wheel is not the book that serves as the guide to this promising and challenging future.
Kai-Fu Lee
MixedThe New York Journal of BooksAI Superpowers is really two books. The first half of the book, a discussion of AI and the U.S. and Chinese companies competing for advantage, is extremely accessible and informative. The second half, which delves into the economic implications of AI, reinforces my belief that computer scientists should stick to computer science and leave economics to economists ... While he sees AI as being an important innovation, he also rightly throws cold water on the technology-distopians who claim that super-AI that is superior to humans—think The Terminator—is science fiction and at best (or worst) a long way off ... He rightly claims that Chinese tech entrepreneurs are more aggressive than U.S. ones. But there is a fine line between aggression and cheating. For example, Lee praise Chinese entrepreneurs for \'copying,\' making it sound endearing as when he calls the Chinese \'copykittens.\' But what he calls copying is in many cases theft ... Lee glosses over how much of what China is doing...violates the letter, if not the spirit of the World Trade Organization ... Reading the first half of AI Superpowers leads one to be optimistic, although if the reader is American to be worried that China will beat us. Reading the second half leads one to be scared out of one’s mind and demand that government through a monkey wrench into the AI machine.
Bill Kilday
RaveThe New York Journal of BooksKilday, an early hire of Keyhole and its marketing director, is a compelling writer; the book is a fascinating play-by-play story not only of how Keyhole developed and built their mapping innovation but also how by becoming part of Google they were able to scale and expand its functionality by orders of magnitude more than they could envision when they first started. In this sense the book is a first-class business story, detailing the trials and tribulations of getting a tech startup off the ground and then the inside story of working at Google, particularly when it was still a relatively young company ... Never Lost Again is an enjoyable and enlightening read.
