In Troublemakers, historian Leslie Berlin introduces the people and stories behind the birth of the Internet and the microprocessor, as well as Apple, Atari, Genentech, Xerox PARC, ROLM, Ask and the iconic venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers. In the space of only seven years and 35 miles, five major industries—personal computing, video games, biotechnology, modern venture capital and advanced semiconductor logic—were born. 

In addition to well-known innovators such as Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison and Don Valentine, Berlin’s book features Mike Markkula, former Apple chairman; Bob Taylor, who kick-started the ARPANET and masterminded the personal computer; Sandra Kurtzig, the first woman to take a technology company public; Al Alcorn, the engineer behind the first wildly successful video game; Fawn Alvarez, who rose from an assembler on a factory line to the executive suite; and Niels Reimers, who changed how university innovations reach the public. These troublemakers rewrote the rules and invented the future.