The Geek Way

Andrew McAfee

16 November 2023
9781035026173
336 pages

Synopsis

Financial Times Business Books of the Month
Economist Best Books of 2023

With a foreword by Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn

'A handbook for disruptors' - Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google

We’re living in a time of amazing innovation, but we’re not paying enough attention to one of the most important of all: the innovation to the company itself. Now, bestselling author of The Second Machine Age, Andrew McAfee, explains how engineers and geeks are changing the world of business – with extraordinary results.

A new model is being pioneered by geeks; a radical new mindset that has shifted the paradigm entirely on what a business can – and should – be. They do not follow the rules of the Industrial era, with their hierarchies and bureaucratic ways of thinking. They do not follow the principles preached in business schools since the dawn of time. They have all dedicated themselves to approaching business as a geek would: through trial and error, egalitarianism, evidence and stress-testing ideas in a group setting – rather than relying on the boss’s instincts.

By investigating and surveying the contemporary research in psychology, economics and the behavioural sciences, as well as first-hand accounts from the ‘geek’ leaders of today, McAfee's groundbreaking exploration of this emerging phenomenon gets to the heart of the tectonic shifts taking place all over the business world. We have entered a new age. And this age will transform how we achieve great things, now and into the future. The future is geek.

'The most compelling analysis I've seen of what Silicon Valley has learned about building more effective organisations' - Adam Grant, host of TED podcast Re: Thinking and No. 1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again

Andy understands that we geeks haven’t just been creating new technologies in Silicon Valley — we’ve also been creating new and improved ways to run a company in a world permeated by tech. Here he distills what we’ve come up with. This book is a handbook for disruptors
The Geek Way makes a fascinating case that the most important technological revolution of our time isn't what companies make, but how they're managed. Andrew McAfee is a world-class intellectual provocateur - he never ceases to challenge my assumptions and sharpen my thinking - and reading this book will do the same for you. It's the most compelling analysis I've seen of what Silicon Valley has learned about building more effective organizations, and what they still have to learn
By combining management theory, competitive strategy, the science of evolution, psychology, military history and cultural anthropology, McAfee has produced a remarkable work of synthesis that finally explains within a single unified theory — The Geek Way — the reasons why the tech startup approach has taken over so much of the world

Books by Andrew McAfee