MICROSOFT

CEO Satya Nadella’s job may be focused on the future, but his mind is often turning to the past and the lessons he can draw from it. A voracious reader of books in their classic dead-tree form, he recommended one to attendees of his Build conference keynote in May: a biography of J. C. R. Licklider (1915–1990), the psychologist and computer scientist whose vision of “man-computer symbiosis” presaged the graphical user interface, the internet, and the current AI boom.

“I recently revisited M. Mitchell Waldrop’s The Dream Machine and loved it,” Nadella tells Fast Company. “The book was originally published more than 20 years ago and vividly recounts the origins and evolution of modern computing. For more than half a century, the ultimate pursuit of technologists has been a ‘dream machine’ that effortlessly and intuitively augments our human abilities. Today’s nextgeneration AI brings us closer to that vision than ever before;

The Dream Machine reminds us that it is but the latest step in a decadeslong journey.”