Booktv is on facebook. Like us to interact with booktv guest and viewers. Facebook booktv. It is booktv at book expo america. Publishings annual trade show. More from the set at the convention center. You have a new book coming out. What it is about . It is about the innovators. The word is becoming devoid of meaning because it is overused. I wanted to look at how real people invented the computer and internet and how innovation happened in the digital age. It was something from steve jobs and before that bill gates to say who made that type of person and how did they end up being successful. So it isnt about Singular People but collaboration. One of the things i discovered in doing the book is real innovation comes from great teams and not just great leaders what surprised you . The importance of connecting the arts to technology. The importance of what steve jobs always talked about, the liberal arts and engineering int int int int int intersecting. It started with person who loved poetry and the notion of math and comes up with the idea of a computer program. She understand the calculating machi machines and weave patterns or looms. They can do words or music. And the notion comes from this idea that begins with connecting the arts to the technology. When we think of Early Computers we think of in ac. It was the first computer that was programable and all digital. At the same time in iowa, there was a lone professor doing a computer in the basement of the physics building. In some ways he is the first, but doesnt have a team around him. Unlike the folks that have a whole team at university of pennsylvania. And he can never get the computer working and never get it developed and it ends up being abandoned so it is another example of the importance of team work and that is where this is so successful. Walter when the book comes out and you are asked who invented the computer . You would have to say the people that created in ac were the first do a programable computer. They did it in teams. John went to iowa and took idea and up to harvard and saw the machine howard aikin made there. He collects ideas like a bumble bee collects pollen and fertilize it and brings it together. That is how innovation works. It isnt a guy sitting in a garage alone. Even though they took the ideas from a lot of other people or i should say especially because they took their ideas from a lot of people. Who was steve wazbiac . That was steve jobs partner. He created the Circuit Board for what was apple one and two. He is a genus at creating circuits with a few components. He loved giving it away. It takes a sheet of how it works out and gives it away to the members of the home brew computer club. And his friend down the street, steve jobs, said no, we should build them and sell them. And they created a company they called apple. What it takes to innovate isnt just the person with the idea but it also takes a person that says how are we going to execute and turn this into a commercial machine . How will be put a beautiful case around . Get a power supply . So the greatest teams whether it is inventing the transsisters usually have an engineering type and a business time. And they create apple or intel. You crowd sourced this book a little bit. The internet was invented to allow people to collaborate on research. That was the original part of from the defense network. You want people from Research Centers fart away to shape your work and we will have the internet to share. I thought why dont we see if it works that way. I took some of the chapters in my book, early drafts and but them online for everyone to read. And i got 18,000 comments in the first week for one chapter. And a lot of it led to good stuff. Like stewart grand, one of the great colorful characters. He created the well, an early online service. He helped do the mother of all demos which is when doug chose a Computer System for the time. He was there with so many things like ken with the acid test. And he read the whole chapter and said he was there, here who was at the home brew computer club, here is what we did when starting the well. And others say i was at the home brew meeting and it was more like these type of people. So the wisdom of the crowd helps to crowd source. And i put a lot of that in the book and obviously gave them credit and said here is what Stewart Brand said when he read the early version of this chapter. It is tough to write a book like this when we are in the middle of what is a continual innovation period . No, because of the wonderful art and trojectory where there a couple themes and theme one is the creative people that understand the heart and the humanity connect their imagination to the machines and technology and that happened in the 1830s and it is what happened in creating google. I want to show that art. Secondally, another theme is technology is used to bring people together. It is social networking tool. Sometimes you invent the personal computer and it becomes what you do. But we create networks and social networks to bring the computer together. So that is a team that continues as well. One of the things about this book is things you thought were totally new were part of a wonderful progress of a lot of people coming up with ideas. Were you working or keeping notes on the book . I started this book ten years ago. People say how did you write it so fast. I was trying to write it tens years ago on how the internet came to be and the unknown names that helped pull it together. And steve jobs said that is interesting but what is more interesting is in the 1970s and 1980s the internet came together at the same time the personal computers did so you ask make it a book about the joint connection. So i changed the thrust of the book and bill gates said that, too. He said that is fine. But networks are half the story. It is networks and computers together that make the world magical. So i have been working on this, you know, as i say 1012 years, been keeping notes and trying to write this. But by talking to bill gates a lot and doing the book on steve jobs it expanded the nature of what i was trying do. Where does bill gates fit into this narrative . There is a fascinating chapter. He invented something that is interesting. The notion that Software Matters and it isnt going ibm that makes the hardware but what counts is who makes the operating system. So with the first personal computer appears on the cover of poplar Electronics Magazine and he is harvard as a sophomore runs to his dorm room and says it is happening with us. And they decide they will build the operating system for the commuter. They do basic at first, a programming language, and by the time the Computers Come along they create dos the disk operating system and that changes the nature of what computers are. We realize as the women did when they were programming, the programming is where the magic comes. Quick preview of Walter Isaacsons american panic a history of who scares us and why the innovators how a group of inventors, hackers, and geeks created the digital revolution there is a nonfiction or author you would like to see featured on booktv . Send us an email or tweet us. Booktv is in new york city and we are joined by drake who is the publisher of www mnorton. What are the someof the big books coming out . We are excited to be here. Big bock books for the fall. The human age is one of the big ones. One of the best writers about nature did a book called the natural senses and a zoo keepers wife. Humans have subdude 75 of the land mass in the world and dine is here to tell us about it. That is quite the cover on the book. It took a while to get it together. Another become is about the bill. A huge moment in 20th century history and the story of how four people came together to develop the pill and put it on the market. How many books does morton publish each year . About 150. Does that make you one of the big six . We are the biggest and independent publishers. Who is nicolas car . He is fascinating about the ways in technology is changing our lives. He has a book called the glass cage and looking at technology not being all together a good thing. And nick is perspective about how it is changing our lives. When did you begin in publishing and why . I am not sure i want to say. 38 years and it was at www norton company. How did you get into it . I have always loved books. What other book do you want to tell us about david greene midnight in siberia he went to report on what russia is like in the postsoviet era