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I resisted reading this book for years because I’m not a fan of Microsoft, the company or the products, and I’d read enough about the book to know that it is about Microsoft employees… ugh.
But finally I’d heard enough positive reviews that I had to find out for myself, and now I know I’d made a mistake — this is a great story.
The characters are weird and arty, and best of all they all quit their jobs at Microsoft. The book ends up being more about geek culture and startup companies, and Coupland gets it more right than anyone else I can think of, save Po Bronson. The scenes in this book were not written by an outsider who doesn’t really grok hackers. It’s not so much that the microserfs characters are authentic… they’re actually more pure than most of the hackers I know. What Coupland gets right, what he really understands, is the ideal, even though most of the folks who comprise this subculture can only strive to be as weird (hackish) as Coupland’s cast of misfits.
If you like Legos, The Fan Man, The First $20 Million is Always The Hardest, or Linux, you should read this book.
Even if you’d sooner set fire to your hair than use any of the Windows family of products, you should read this book.
Patronize these links, man:
