Highlights from the Memoirs of Vannevar Bush

> Vannevar Bush - head of military research during WW2, author of “As We May Think” and “Science, the Endless Frontier” - wrote a memoir late in life, Pieces of the Action. It was out of print and hard to obtain for a long time, but Stripe Press has brought it back in a new edition

The author of the article collected a number of excerpts grouped by topic: "On invention"; "On leadership and management"; "Communication style"; "On society, war and politics"; "Fun stories"; "On the spirit we need".

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Already near the beginning we meet a remarkable one: Vannevar Bush was contacted by a «chap» who said he «made a very great invention and wanted [Bush] to develop it for him». Basically, the guy had a "generic idea" of the kind "what if we harnessed the power of things", and showed as if unaware that what is important is feasibility. "Silver bullets" before the times of populism.

I visit HN daily and wade through dozens of posts looking for an occasional gem like this. I just ordered the book. Thank you!