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Hacking Innovation: The New Growth Model from the Sinister World of Hackers
Hackers are a global fascination with cybercrime representing our single biggest threat to national security. But putting their sinister motives aside, the dark underworld of hackers contains some of the most creative minds on the planet.
- GenresBusiness
Hardcover
Published January 24, 2017
29 people are currently reading
124 people want to read
About the author
Josh Linkner
16 books38 followersTo Josh Linkner, creativity and innovation are the lifeblood of all human progress, and as such, he's spent his career harnessing the spirit of creative disruption. His journey has been non-traditional at every step: he's been a professional jazz guitarist, 4-time tech entrepreneur, hyper-growth CEO, New York Times bestselling author, venture capitalist, and urban reinventor. Today, Linkner leads Detroit Venture Partners, helping to rebuild his hometown of Detroit, Michigan, by backing passionate entrepreneurs who can make an impact through their own innovative ideas. He is also a thought leader and top-rated keynote speaker on innovation, creativity, and reinvention. Linkner has written two books- Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity and The Road to Reinvention: How to Drive Disruption and Accelerate Transformation. He's on a mission to drive creativity, innovation, and reinvention. And yes, he still plays a mean jazz guitar. For more information, visit JoshLinkner.com.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 24, 2021
For a book with the word "new" right in the title, there is absolutely nothing new here.
On the face of it, the concept of Josh Linker's Hacking Innovation seemed exciting and interesting to me. Computer hacking and cyber-crime cost legitimate businesses billions of dollars a year, and I was intrigued by the notion of a book with insights into how such criminals achieve success against the world's smartest security experts, especially framed in terms of how such tactics can be co-opted (what the author calls a "legit flip"). But the execution in this book falls far short of the promise. Instead of generating new insights or offering fresh mindsets, this book is nothing but a stale rehash of already-familiar ideas, dressed up with flimsy connections to past successful hacking activity.
In part, the book fails because the author himself has no more actual knowledge about the world of hacking than you or I. By his own introduction, he is neither a reformed hacker himself nor a "white-hat" security expert with a professional knowledge of their techniques. The only credentials he even offers in the topic are that, in his youth, he once wrote a crude auto-dialer program to identify long-distance dialing codes.
In general, Linker's so-called insights fall into one of two categories:
- Actual hacking tactics and techniques, but with "legit flips" that are trivial or banal. One example: for the actual hacker technique known as "social engineering", the "legit flip" boils down to "come up with promotions that will go viral on social media! It's like free advertising!" This was hardly "fresh advice" even when the book was published in 2017, and it has only gotten staler in the years since.
- Actual well-worn business advice, but with only the most tenuous of connections to the world of hacking. Some examples of such purported hacking techniques include "Borrowing" (which is nothing but the tired old maxim of "think outside the box"), "Deconstruct" (better known as competitive research), and "Working Backward" which even Linker himself identifies in the text as a simple rebranding of the principle to "begin with the end in mind" from Steven Covey's beloved 1989 classic, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
The book might still have been an enjoyable read despite all the timeworn advice if the writing were enjoyable, but it's not. In lieu of effective writing, the book makes frequent suffocating use of bold italics (numerous times in nearly every paragraph) to browbeat the reader with the author's points. Combined with a casual tone and third-grade reading level, the book reads most like a locker-room discussion amongst Linker and his frat-boy buddies.
The only point I can offer in the book's favor is that there was some schadenfreude in the trip down memory lane, as the book ably recaps each of the past decade's most eye-catching hacking attacks— Target, Ashley Madison, the Federal Office of Personnel Management, etc. Still, with limited bandwidth for reading and so many other outstanding books on the topic of business techniques and strategies to choose from, the reader would be much better served by investing their mental energy elsewhere.
On the face of it, the concept of Josh Linker's Hacking Innovation seemed exciting and interesting to me. Computer hacking and cyber-crime cost legitimate businesses billions of dollars a year, and I was intrigued by the notion of a book with insights into how such criminals achieve success against the world's smartest security experts, especially framed in terms of how such tactics can be co-opted (what the author calls a "legit flip"). But the execution in this book falls far short of the promise. Instead of generating new insights or offering fresh mindsets, this book is nothing but a stale rehash of already-familiar ideas, dressed up with flimsy connections to past successful hacking activity.
In part, the book fails because the author himself has no more actual knowledge about the world of hacking than you or I. By his own introduction, he is neither a reformed hacker himself nor a "white-hat" security expert with a professional knowledge of their techniques. The only credentials he even offers in the topic are that, in his youth, he once wrote a crude auto-dialer program to identify long-distance dialing codes.
In general, Linker's so-called insights fall into one of two categories:
- Actual hacking tactics and techniques, but with "legit flips" that are trivial or banal. One example: for the actual hacker technique known as "social engineering", the "legit flip" boils down to "come up with promotions that will go viral on social media! It's like free advertising!" This was hardly "fresh advice" even when the book was published in 2017, and it has only gotten staler in the years since.
- Actual well-worn business advice, but with only the most tenuous of connections to the world of hacking. Some examples of such purported hacking techniques include "Borrowing" (which is nothing but the tired old maxim of "think outside the box"), "Deconstruct" (better known as competitive research), and "Working Backward" which even Linker himself identifies in the text as a simple rebranding of the principle to "begin with the end in mind" from Steven Covey's beloved 1989 classic, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
The book might still have been an enjoyable read despite all the timeworn advice if the writing were enjoyable, but it's not. In lieu of effective writing, the book makes frequent suffocating use of bold italics (numerous times in nearly every paragraph) to browbeat the reader with the author's points. Combined with a casual tone and third-grade reading level, the book reads most like a locker-room discussion amongst Linker and his frat-boy buddies.
The only point I can offer in the book's favor is that there was some schadenfreude in the trip down memory lane, as the book ably recaps each of the past decade's most eye-catching hacking attacks— Target, Ashley Madison, the Federal Office of Personnel Management, etc. Still, with limited bandwidth for reading and so many other outstanding books on the topic of business techniques and strategies to choose from, the reader would be much better served by investing their mental energy elsewhere.
May 29, 2017
good follow on to road to reinvention......however many of the stories were duplicated
June 17, 2017
Fresh and interesting perspective to problem identification and solving.
March 19, 2017
My friend Josh Linkner has done it again: produced a fresh, creative book on innovation and packed it full of good ideas. If you're an entrepreneur, or trying to kick-start innovation in your big, established company, then put this book on your desk and refer to it constantly.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews