It is tough to overestimate Big Tech’s influence on the modern world. But how did we get here? The best tech books unravel the rise and, occasionally, fall of some of the dominant companies and characters that created the gadgets and software we spend so much of our lives using.

You’ll find intensely detailed biographies, in-depth company histories, and plenty of drama and enlightenment in these tech tomes, and they also make great gifts for the techy folks in your life. You may also be interested in our Gifts for Book Lovers, Best Cookbooks, and Best Kindles guides.

Updated October 2026: I added five books, including Apple in China, More Everything Forever, Gouged, The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State, and The Nerd Reich.

Charting Nvidia’s rise to become one of the most valuable companies on earth, this biography of cofounder and CEO Jensen Huang is educational and entertaining. Witt explains how the company spun GPU (graphics processing unit) manufacturing for gaming into parallel processing and a marriage of hardware and software that has powered the rise of AI. It has also made Huang very rich, but he isn’t always painted in a flattering light, which helps to counterbalance the founder worship vibe.

For a slightly different view on Nvidia's history, try The Nvidia Way: Jensen Huang and the Making of a Tech Giant, by Tae Kim.

A well-deserved winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this book should be required reading for anyone who works in technology or harbors a curiosity about how it came to dominate our lives.

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