Released in May 2025 to much acclaim, this book deserves every bit of praise.

Patrick McGee takes you through more than just Apple’s history—he unpacks supply chain economics, trade tensions, and the messy geopolitics behind it all.

He makes a compelling case that Apple wasn’t just another player benefiting from China’s manufacturing rise, but a primary catalyst. Unlike companies that simply outsourced production, Apple sent hundreds—maybe thousands—of engineers to train Chinese teams and pioneer new manufacturing methods right inside Chinese factories.

It’s fair to say Apple wouldn’t be Apple without China.  McGee suggests that China wouldn’t be China without Apple.

McGee praises Apple’s extraordinary achievements, but this isn’t a fanboy love letter. He exposes the cutthroat practices, domineering behavior, and relentless at-any-cost pursuit of excellence—and the very real human cost behind it.

Tim Cook doesn’t come out unscathed. I hadn’t read much about him before, but here he’s revealed as a hard-driven, uncompromising executive who needs two assistants just to cover his 12+ hour days. I wouldn’t want to work for him.

While reading, I couldn’t help but think of Roosevelt’s public works projects, which fueled America’s industrial expansion. Those were socialist-leaning government investments, powered largely by immigrant labor.

China is now doing its own version—pouring resources into infrastructure and busing in workers from rural areas by the tens of thousands. Not technically immigrants, but the parallel holds.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is trying to “re-shore” industry while actively discouraging immigrants, gutting universities, and shutting down government research  organizations. If history is a guide, that path leads straight to the part of the map marked: Here there be dragons.

Bottom line: If you’re into the history and drama of the tech world, this one’s a must-read.

Wanna dish some gossip? Then this book by Karen Hao is for you. It’s an excellent read, though it clearly has an agenda and strays from impartiality at times.

That’s not meant as a knock. Hao gives a deeper look into OpenAI’s inner workings than any other book I’ve read. She has serious domain knowledge and sharp journalistic skills, honed over years reporting for the WSJ and other top outlets.

The book made a splash because Hao was the first to piece together an accurate timeline of the attempted ouster of Sam Altman from OpenAI. That was a wild ride.

She also covers the effective altruism (EA) angle well. I’ll write more about this in another post—the more I learn about EA and its cousin “effective accelerationism,” the more uneasy I am about the world we’re building. And yes, I’m a technologist helping build it.

This book is opinionated. Hao is not a fan of Altman. Period. She even devotes arguably too much time to Sam Altman’s sister. Those chapters felt murky, with as much he-said/she-said as journalism.

Hao also dives into the “digital colonization” of the Global South. It’s one of the few AI books to give this real coverage, and it’s illuminating. But the facts and figures aren’t always as well-sourced as I’d like, and they do carry a whiff of agenda-driven reporting.

Bottom line: I recommend this book, but know it’s not fully impartial. For a more balanced take, start with Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT, and the Race that Will Change the World by Parmy Olson.