The Beginnings of Biotech
by Sally Smith Hughes
Recommended by Patrick Collison
Check price on AmazonProof-backed recommendation
Amazon availability
Recommended by 3 sources and appears in Most Recommended Books, Business, and Science.
In the fall of 1980, Genentech, Inc., a littleknown California genetic engineering company, became the overnight darling of Wall Street, raising over $38 million in its initial public stock offering. Lacking marketed products or substantial profit, the firm nonetheless saw its share price escalate from $35 to $89 in the first few minutes of tradin...
Check formats, pricing, and current availability directly.
Why recommended
Recommended by 3 sources and appears in Most Recommended Books, Business, and Science.
People and public figures who have recommended this book.
Recommendation proof is sourced from public posts, interviews, reading lists, and cited references.
Patrick Collison
Co-founder and CEO of Stripe
“Below are my favorite books and articles about the history of computing and Silicon Valley.”
Check formats, pricing, and availability options directly on Amazon.

Consider Accidental Presidents by Jared Cohen. Recommended by 10 sources.
“Accidental Presidents offers eight narrative portraits of men who succeeded to the U.S. presidency without election, using anecdote-rich scenes and readable context to show how personality and circumstance interact with office power. It’s strongest as a set of self-contained stories that make succession stakes concrete for non-specialist readers; it does not prioritize dense archival argument or exhaustive methodology, so expect some interpretive generalizations and repeated themes across cases. Use it for fast historical orientation rather than scholarly deep-dives.”
Each recommendation is collected from a public source — interviews, articles, or curated lists — and linked to its original URL. Books with many verifiable recommendations from respected people rank higher.