WIRED's holiday gift guide delivers 25 essential tech books that decode Big Tech's biggest players and pivotal moments. The updated list includes fresh releases like Stephen Witt's biography of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Parmy Olson's deep dive into the AI arms race. These aren't just books - they're insider access to the companies and characters reshaping our digital world.
WIRED's annual tech book gift guide just dropped its 2025 edition, and it's packed with the kind of insider stories that make Silicon Valley feel less like myth and more like reality. The carefully curated list of 25 books offers readers a backstage pass to Big Tech's most defining moments and controversial figures. Leading the new additions is Stephen Witt's 'The Thinking Machine,' a biography of Nvidia cofounder and CEO Jensen Huang that charts the company's transformation from gaming graphics to AI goldmine. Witt doesn't shy away from Huang's demanding leadership style, offering a refreshing counterbalance to typical founder worship. The book explains how Nvidia cleverly pivoted GPU manufacturing into the parallel processing powerhouse that now drives artificial intelligence. Also making the cut is Parmy Olson's 'Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT, and the Race That Will Change the World,' framing the AI boom as a clash between OpenAI's Sam Altman and DeepMind's Demis Hassabis. Olson reveals how seeming idealists with noble intentions can get swayed by billionaire backers and end up compromising their original vision. The guide balances fresh releases with established classics. Readers still get Walter Isaacson's definitive Steve Jobs biography, released just 19 days after the Apple cofounder's death. There's also Tracy Kidder's Pulitzer Prize-winning 'The Soul of a New Machine,' which remains eerily prescient about tech worker burnout despite being published in 1981. Meta gets thorough treatment through Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang's 'An Ugly Truth,' which exposes how Facebook executives willingly sacrificed user privacy while shirking fact-checking responsibilities. The book reveals how the platform became a persuasion machine, giving bad actors the tools to influence everything from elections to vaccine decisions. For readers curious about the companies behind their everyday devices, Geoffrey Cain's 'Samsung Rising' offers a gossipy inside look at the South Korean giant's family drama and government connections. The book covers Samsung's journey from 1938 startup to global electronics empire, including the explosive Galaxy Note 7 debacle. The criminal side of tech gets coverage through Andy Greenberg's 'Tracers in the Dark,' which follows investigators hunting cryptocurrency crime lords across digital black markets. 's own cybersecurity expert documents how law enforcement cracked seemingly anonymous bitcoin transactions to catch drug dealers and worse. Sarah Frier's 'No Filter' provides the authoritative Instagram origin story, chronicling the photo app's evolution from startup to social media giant and its eventual absorption by . Frier interviews founders and early employees to explain Instagram's role in creating influencer culture. Even gaming gets representation through Sid Meier's memoir, offering insights from the legendary designer behind 'Civilization.' Meier explains how his name became a brand despite video game development being inherently collaborative. The collection addresses tech's darker sides too. Ruha Benjamin's 'Race After Technology' warns how AI perpetuates institutional racism through discriminatory design, while Laura Bates' 'The New Age of Sexism' argues that artificial intelligence has become a new frontier for female oppression. Price points range from $7 for older titles to $30 for recent releases, making the collection accessible for various budgets. The books span multiple retailers including , Bookshop.org, and Waterstones.
