People like
👤 Hyman Rickover
and
👤 Theodore Rockwell
are different enough from me that I learn a lot by reading
about them, but similar enough that I can pick up nuance
from their conversations, writing, etc
Same for the extremely fast pace of technology
breakthroughs that characterizes modern times.
So your only options to understand these are to study
from 1776 (Watt steam engine) on. From the perspective
of computers the 19th century is less useful, but
it's still really good. Eg railroads and telegraph
systems give lots of insight into
network effects.
Somewhat underappreciated
These aren't hidden mysteries by any means since a
bunch of these people are still around. However 20th
century tech (especially mid-20th century) still
doesn't get enough attention
Eg
👤 Hyman Rickover
was one of the most powerful technologists ever. There
are some Rickover-👤 Steve Jobs-👤 Elon Musk
parallels but no one in tech talks about him, though
they discuss the latter two constantly.
Limitations
No special advantage to studying human nature over other
times, just the interaction between humans and tech