The History of the Future, Blake J. Harris
The History of the Future, Blake J. Harris
11 Rating(s)
List: $36.99 | Sale: $25.90
Club: $18.49

The History of the Future
Oculus, Facebook, and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality

Author: Blake J. Harris

Narrator: Stephen Graybill

Unabridged: 17 hr 38 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 02/19/2019

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

The dramatic, larger-than-life true story behind the founding of Oculus and its quest for virtual reality, by the bestselling author of Console Wars.From iconic books like Neuromancer to blockbuster films like The Matrix, virtual reality has long been hailed as the ultimate technology. But outside of a few research labs and military training facilities, this tantalizing vision of the future was nothing but science fiction. Until 2012, when Oculus founder Palmer Luckey—then just a rebellious teenage dreamer living alone in a camper trailer—invents a device that has the potential to change everything.With the help of a videogame legend, a serial entrepreneur and many other colorful characters, Luckey’s scrappy startup kickstarts a revolution and sets out to bring VR to the masses. As with most underdog stories, things don’t quite go according to plan. But what happens next turns out to be the ultimate entrepreneurial journey: a tale of battles won and lost, lessons learned and neverending twists and turns—including an unlikely multi-billion-dollar acquisition by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, which shakes up the landscape in Silicon Valley and gives Oculus the chance to forever change our reality.Drawing on over a hundred interviews with the key players driving this revolution, The History of the Future weaves together a rich, cinematic narrative that captures the breakthroughs, breakdowns and human drama of trying to change the world. The result is a super accessible and supremely entertaining look at the birth of a game-changing new industry.Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

About Blake J. Harris

Blake J. Harris is the bestselling author of History of the Future and Console Wars, which is now a CBS All Access feature film by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. He has written for ESPN, IGN, Fast Company, The Huffington Post, /Film and The AV Club. He is also a regular guest on Paul Scheer’s How Did This Get Made? podcast, where every week he interviews some the biggest names responsible for some of the worst movies ever made. Harris lives in New York with his wife.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Hari on March 10, 2019

It is easy to say that one should never be penalized professionally for their personal views. But what if they were the face of a company and had a view that was unpopular with the MSM resulting in their perhaps unfair vilification of the founder and by association the company? Blake Harris does a co......more

Goodreads review by Shiri on June 27, 2020

Interesting exploration/story of the founding of Oculus. Unfortunately like most Silicon Valley stories, there is a wide-eyed star-struck tone throughout the book with little or no criticism to be found anywhere (other than of the criticism of the evil empire of Facebook). I couldn't put my finger o......more

Goodreads review by Michael on May 02, 2019

THIS BOOK WAS GREAT!......more

Goodreads review by Raymond on March 17, 2019

Couldnt put it down! I was an original backer of the Oculus Kickstarter. I remember many of the moments in this book. It's incredible getting to go back and get so much more detail and context from these moments in history. Blake does an absolutely amazing job of presenting an objective and honest re......more

Goodreads review by Jason on January 04, 2021

As someone who was part of this particular Silicon Valley story, I've been hesitant to read this book when it first came out. There are so intangibly great things about that environment, and it's led to some really great progress for the consumer on a number of different technologies. But this book......more