Quotes from John Markoff

forcing him to jump back and forth along the corridor in an almost physical demonstration of hypertext.

At the top of the page is a photo of sunrise as seen from space, and in between are the words "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." Brand intended the photo as a way to describe living a life open to serendipity. As Jobs put it, "I have always wished that for myself.

Although he was largely an observer of the technical community that created Silicon Valley, his various ideas and crusades around the Whole Earth Catalog, which he created in the fall of 1968, foreshadow and resonate with the techno-utopian culture that the Valley spawned. He went on to rethink modern architecture from a biological perspective and later publicly broke with the environmental movement over nuclear power and GMO food.

Today Shakey's original DNA can be found in everything from the Kiva warehouse robot and Google's autonomous car to Apple's Siri intelligent assistant.

was not a coincidence that the two men who had the greatest impact on the shape of today's personal computer were among the earliest to fully comprehend the impact of the exponential scaling of microelectronic circuits.

Both as a young man and more recently, he first figuratively and then literally set out to "play God," initially by making the claim that humans had the power of gods and then during the past decade by creating an organization to save and restore endangered species with modern biotechnology.

It was a worldview that both resonated and broke with the New Left, for Brand rejected traditional politics and focused instead on what he called direct power—a focus on tools and skills for the individual—emerging from his early libertarian sympathies.

Although driverless cars will displace millions of jobs, they will also save many lives. Today, decisions about implementing technologies are made largely on the basis of profitability and efficiency, but there is an obvious need for a new moral calculus. The devil, however, is in more than the details. As with nuclear weapons and nuclear power, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and robotics will have society-wide consequences, both intended and unintended, in the next decade.

Indeed, Brand's thinking has evolved in many ways—from anti- to pronuclear, from environmentalism to conservationism, and from libertarianism to something closer to traditional liberalism.

In his first year at Intel he met some superstar Russian software designers who worked under contract for the chipmaker, and he realized that they could be an important resource for him.

In particular, Brand has been constant in his commitment to science, which he refers to as the only "true news"; in his commitment to bottom-up democracy (with a small d); and in his relentless curiosity.

religious experience, inspiring the same kinds of passion that Vannevar Bush's Memex article had given rise to for Engelbart twenty-three years earlier. Computing was just beginning to have an impact on society.

At Stanford, he had experienced an epiphany: "I'm not really actually here to learn French, or whatever, I'm learning how to be able to learn anything, and then I can go forth and have a life. . . . I don't need the class." Learning was an end unto itself.

His romance with tools—the Catalog would be subtitled Access to Tools—came in part from his 1966 encounter with Fuller, who was legendary for claiming: "If you want to teach people a new way of thinking, don't bother trying to teach them. Instead, give them a tool, the use of which will lead to new ways of thinking.

He also found an essay written by William James titled "What Makes a Life Significant

Both the Whole Earth Catalog and the Homebrew Computer Club, which gave rise to several dozen companies that forged the personal computer industry—including Apple—emerged from the fertile ground that Raymond created.

Zelig-like penchant for being intimately involved in a series of key social and technological movements

Learning how to learn on his own proved one of the most important lessons of his life.

A decade later Brand's Whole Earth Catalog would begin with the premise "We are as gods and might as well get good at it.

Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, or WELL, a computer conferencing system that Brand launched in 1985.

One night in bed Jennings complained that Brand's monologues were growing harsh and boring. She asked him to please "gentle up.

At Stanford he read both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and was seduced by Ayn Rand's romantic view of free-market capitalism as well as her view of businessmen as heroic.

Mike Brand had counseled his brother not to focus on selecting individual courses but rather to find the best professors. One of those he recommended was a charismatic professor of religion, Frederic Spiegelberg.