My Grateful Geek Book Finally Out
by Jean-Louis Gassée
Yes, with help gratefully acknowledged below, my book is finally available at Amazon in print and Kindle formats. It was harder than I presumptuously expected. I hope to do better in a future adventure, in French perhaps?
For the past 15 years, my Monday Notes essays have examined the tech world that has fascinated and fed me, with occasional excursions into politics. Lately, my somewhat weekly production (about 45 a year — we’ll blame the gaps on gently hedonistic vacations in France) has became less regular. Not for lack of interest, there’s no dearth of interesting topics and people who continue to excite this aging geek, but because I was struggling with the completion of a book I imprudently thought I’d complete in no time.
Rightly titled Grateful Geek, I introduce it thus:
This book is…
First, a look back, in amazement and gratitude, to a very long procession of people who helped me, liked and even loved me sometimes, who smiled indulgently and tolerated me, taught me, and sometimes motivated me to do more; and more importantly, to be a better person. In the autumn of my years, I bow to them all, even to the ones I, unfortunately, disliked or failed to appreciate. I won’t be able to acknowledge them all, but they live in me as I write this book.
Second, it is a paean to the personal computers that lit up my business life. In this book, you’ll find my explanation for our fascination with the machines that give wings to our minds and bodies. They no longer dwell solely on our desks or in our bags; they inhabit our pockets and now our wrists; they help us think, communicate, organize, learn and play. I was lucky to enter real professional life at the start of the PC era. Over fifty years later, I remain amazed, occasionally frustrated, and always hopeful to see personal computers continue to delight us.
Third, 50 years in the world of tech provided many, many opportunities to make mistakes. I recount most, not in a confessional spirit, but more like a picaresque tale of one fumble or illusion after another, with a grateful smile for those who, like a small Inuit tribe, jumped with me from one ice floe to the next. I survived, after all, which feeds my sense of wonderment and gratitude for those who shared those adventures — or suffered from them. But no advice expressed or implied. We know the old joke about good judgment being the fruit of experience, and experience resulting from bad judgment.
I hope you’ll enjoy my stories as much as I enjoyed living them — and that you have or will find your own. Either in you or around you.
In the Many Thanks section at the end I acknowledge my debt to French Épistemologist and Académicien Michel Serres and to my daughter Marie, and, in particular to Sébastien Taveau who carried me through to the finish line:
Finally, the indispensable Sébastien Taveau, a long-time friend who recently published a book felicitously titled “The Delivery Man”, the person who breathes real-word viability into innovators’ visions. One day over lunch at Taverna, a Greek restaurant in Palo Alto, when Sébastien asked how my own book project was progressing, I had to sheepishly admit I was neurotically stuck. Writer’s block, how unoriginal. Sébastien offered his help, pushed me to write more, and took charge of the editing and production process, a complicated one as I had had yet to discover. Sébastien became The Delivery Man for this book as well. Without him Grateful Geek would have ended as an unfinished manuscript, the source of embarrassed if-only regrets. Thank you, Delivery Man Sébastien!
And I don’t want to forget Doug Fulton who, besides his struggles with Be engineers when documenting their work, also edited the Be Newsletter and, later, the Monday Notes that provided encouragement and seeds for this Grateful Geek memoir.
When starting my book, I overlooked two obstacles: The well-known neuroses that afflicts many but not all writers and the challenges Guy Kawasaki aptly describes in his APE: Author Publisher Entrepreneur book. (By the way, Guy, if you read this, please answer my email.)
I have wrestled with all three letters of the APE acronym.
As an author, there are times when it’s a struggle to drag the pen out of the inkwell. Even after years of my writing being accepted in both English and French, I banally fell prey to Imposter Syndrome. I can bloviate about it, with or without irony, but having just turned the corner into my eighties, I doubt therapy or chemicals will vanquish the affliction.
This doesn’t mean I’m discouraged from further book-writing, au contraire, I’m now moving ideas and scenes inside my head for a tech/finance/crime/sex fiction — in French. Vivid scenes that, when sketched, horrify some family members. This might lead me to publish under a pseudonym. No warranties expressed or implied.
The publishing decision was easy: Self-publish on Amazon. As Steven Sinofsky once explained to me, industry publishers are mostly interested in negative stories such as Apple losing its soul after Steve Jobs’ untimely demise. This cynicism led him to self-publish Hardcore Software, his momentous story of the rise and fall of the PC Revolution.
I took Sinofsky’s observation to heart. Given how little dirt I meant to spread (not that I lacked material), I decided to self-publish my labor of love. As you’ll see in Grateful Geek, I tried to stay faithful to the book’s title [from the In Conclusion chapter]:
There is no ambivalence regarding the first part of the title: my gratitude is unmitigated. My debt is immense to the people who loved me, helped me, and sometimes had to tolerate my pinballing — from schools to jobs, from sentimental education to a successful family which is deeply meaningful to me. Thanks also go to some who didn’t like me, who opposed me as I came to benefit from the experience, and the insight I gained later, when more at peace with the world. I tried to see their viewpoints which I missed at the time.
I still had to struggle with the Entrepreneur part. Once again, Sébastien Taveau came through. After helping with editing and organizing, he led me through a labyrinth that ranged from cover design to ISBN registration and Amazon publishing administration, and much more.
Speaking of labyrinths, I discovered that Grateful Geek was unaccountably stuck inside the Apple Books organization. As I’m writing this on a Saturday afternoon, I emailed Greg Jozwiak, Apple’s Sr VP of WW Marketing (affectionately known as Joz) asking for help and got an instant response, a confirmation of his reputation for attention and reactivity.
[Edit: This Monday, an Apple person called Ian Wallace patiently helped me reach the finish line. Grateful Geek is now avaliable on Apple Books.]
An audiobook version is in the works. As a sample, I received a moving rendition of a passage of the “Turning Point 6: Meeting Brigitte” chapter, in which I reminisce:
As I write about these years, my chest rises as my heart sings memories which could fill their own book.
Indeed. I’ll stop here and wish you as a good time reading Grateful Geek as I have re-reading it.
— JLG@mondaynote.com
