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1. Quite long and quite didactic, but a valuable perspective
   A very long book, and quite didactic, but added an interesting perspective to folks and groups I’ve interacted with. I’m less of a Marxist than the author, but even so, he makes some very good points that are underrepresented in current discourse.

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2. Be patient and read on
   History is a challenge and he makes it interesting. The foot notes are a good read alone. Draw your own conclusions and let the pages be your guide to issues within the Silicon Valley.Read it with patience and curiosity about how technology effects all of us. Making money is the driving question in this book and what people are willing to do to make it becomes a moral and ethical question. As written this book reports morals and ethics had little to do with the founding and growth of the Silicon Valley. A return or perhaps a start in addressing environmental issues is offered as a solution to the problems of Palo Alto/Silicon Valley.

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3. You Can’t Alway Judge a Book by Its Cover
   Silly me. I saw the title and jumped to the conclusion this would be a book about the history of Palo Alto and its surrounding areas. It actually seemed to start out as I had expected. The writing was good, engaging, and enlightening.Coincidentally, about the time the focus was on the railroad barons of the Southern Pacific, the book began jumping the tracks. It was becoming apparent this was to be something other than an objective work of history. The author’s biases and political bents began overwhelming the dialog.Before long, I had somehow been transported from Leland Stanford’s estate to knocking on doors registering black voters in the American South in the early 1960s. Palo Alto, despite the author’s repeated attempts to bring it back home to Palo Alto, soon became little more than a metaphor for what’s wrong with America and capitalism. It was less about the history. Palo Alto became the delivery engine for the author’s philosophy. It was a tool, not a topic.For the most part, I like the writing style, but from time-to-time, the remarks directed at the author’s apparent enemies bordered on snarky and sophomoric. The book was a long one that brought to mind the antithesis of an old adage, but in this case I thought to myself: You may not be able to pack ten pounds in a five pound can, but obviously you can put five pounds in a ten pound can. It could have been packed a little tighter for a better and easier read.The book was well researched, well sourced, and full of insights – even if they were little more than reflections of the author’s political philosophy. The “history” turned out to be a political tome.With all that said, I still recommend reading the book. It presented a lot of eye-opening “facts” even though you had to view them through the author’s colored glasses.Four Stars because 3½ wasn’t an option.

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4. Californication
   I had very high hopes for this book, which sounded like it was really in my wheelhouse – a big picture overview, across several generations, and featuring a topic of considerable interest to me. Since moving to California about five years ago, I have often sought out books about the history of the Golden State as a way of becoming more familiar with my surroundings. But bad writing is bad writing and no book, regardless of its merits, can survive it. And Palo Alto does not have that many merits. Windy, discursive and overwritten, reading this book feels like you are listening to a sky-high hippie philosopher explain the universe. It hops from one topic to another, with a string of events related to Palo Alto, Silicon Valley or Stanford University, but does not really connect the dots. I am not someone who gets too upset when a book shows some bias – I expect it, and I should point out I agree with a lot of the arguments in this anti-capitalist screed. But even for me, the book seemed heavily biased. If you’re a right winger, forget about this, you couldn’t handle it. I should say I learned some things, so it confirms my feeling that no time spent reading is wasted. Early on, the author details the early career of Herbert Hoover, who proved a much more interesting figure than I expected. But as the book become more current, and entered into areas where I have read other material on the same topics, it failed to engage me. The section on Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos con, for example is nowhere near as compelling as the book Bad Blood.

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5. It is a real alternative history, one you will never see in school.
   I am a refugee from San Francisco and Silicon Valley. I needed to live without stairs, so we moved to thecountry. My dad was part of the B of A and I have read the propaganda “Biography of a Bank” and lived a mile away from Hoover’s Tower for many years. As well as down the street from Hoover’s home. My whole life was Palo Alto/San Francisco History. This author has the whole thing organized in book form. As unpleasant as some folks will find the book; it is very lively and accurate.

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6. Do You Really Know Silicon Valley?
   Having grown up in the cherry orchards of Sunnyvale, watching them turn into Apple, Google, LinkedIn, and Cisco, I thought I knew a lot about Silicon Valley. PALO ALTO is a tremendous history and Business 1A storyline that defines and introduces the reader to the real California. From BofA, Stanford, HP, Apple, and Google to hundreds of new startups that failed while a few exploded, this is a fun and entertaining ride through the Bay Area. If you grew up here or just lived here for a while you will find old friends, employers, and experiences to enjoy again in PALO ALTO. Enjoy!

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7. Not written in a dull, dry academic tone; very easy to read. Covers well-known, almost forgotten, and unknown episodes, weaving them all together to give a fresh perspective.

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8. Great book of the history and the future

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9. On one hand its is a polemic by the author on a modern far left political take on the ills of the world from globalisation to individual fragility and the central role of Palo Alto in this. Amongst all this Harris manages to write an in-depth Bay Area history that surfaced nuggets that I didnt know from the range of previous books on the area that I had read. It had great quotes attributed to Silicon Valley pioneers like Wilf Corrigan. It’s an oddity. If you like modern far left political theory, or a history of technology buff who is prepared to wade through the editorialising, it might be worth your while.

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10. The research and detail of the narrative

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