3.5 stars (that means I liked it)
Blackberry’s fall is more than a story of the iPhone.
Books about where things went wrong, like [b:The Fight to Save Yahoo!|22608584|Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo!|Nicholas Carlson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1409613156s/22608584.jpg|42098563], or [b:State of Denial|27506|State of Denial|Bob Woodward|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1441629896s/27506.jpg|815106]), are so much more fun than the sunny narratives of admiring books about tech companies ([b:The Facebook Effect|7518289|The Facebook Effect The Inside Story of the Company That is Connecting the World|David Kirkpatrick|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1442657421s/7518289.jpg|9732949] [b:Creativity, Inc.|18077903|Creativity, Inc. Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration|Ed Catmull|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1400863577s/18077903.jpg|25384143]. It’s safe to say that Blackberry went spectacularly sideways after a quick ascent, and Losing the Signal delivers on the promise of explaining why.
The main characters and co-CEOs Lazardis and Balsillie both had strengths and flaws, and unlike books such as Hatching Twitter, the authors do a good job of letting the events speak for themselves. What I found enlightening was how Balsillie had a winning idea but was unable to convince the rest of the company, so instead they stuck with two more iterations on a sinking ship. Blackberry could have been a global force in the messaging game, now I’m not even sure BBM would be a viable acquisition target.
I would have enjoyed more information on the business rather than the characters, but I still have massive respect for what information and stories that the authors were able to collect.