The Everything Blueprint, James Ashton
The Everything Blueprint, James Ashton
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The Everything Blueprint
The Microchip Design that Changed the World

Author: James Ashton

Narrator: James Ashton

Unabridged: 11 hr 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/11/2023

Synopsis

A gripping look at the rise of the microchip and the British tech company caught in the middle of the global battle for dominance.

A big source of tension between the US and China at the moment is technology. And one very small component is now at the centre of this battle for global dominance: the microchip. Controlling chip manufacturing in the 21st century may well prove to be like controlling the oil supply in the 20th. The country that controls this manufacturing can throttle the military and economic power of others.

At the heart of this battle is ARM Holdings.

Founded in Cambridge in 1990, Arm specialises in microprocessors, and dominates the global smartphone market (their designs feature in 95% of all mobile phones globally). It's a real British tech success story. But it's currently caught in the middle of a war for total control on microchips because whoever controls ARM, controls microchips.

The Everything Blueprint describes the titanic power struggle for control of the microchip - told through the story of a British start up that has found itself in the middle. The novel alternates between telling the rise of the Arm and the battle for the microchip to reveal just how important this company is

(P) 2023 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

About James Ashton

James Ashton writes about business, technology, economics and leadership. He has been Executive Editor and City Editor of the London Evening Standard and Independent titles and City Editor of the Sunday Times. He is chief executive of the Quoted Companies Alliance, a members' organisation which champions London's stock market-listed growth businesses.James is the author of two previous business books: The Nine Types of Leader (Kogan Page) and FTSE: The Inside Story (Nicholas Brealey, co-written with FTSE founder Mark Makepeace). Born in West Yorkshire, he was educated at the University of St Andrews and City University in London and lives in Surrey with his wife and daughter.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Claire on December 28, 2025

A great glide through computers since childhood in the 70's. Nostalgic and accurate.......more

Goodreads review by Mike on October 25, 2023

If you want to know how the world’s most successful semiconductor designer bestrides the world stage, you need only read The Everything Blueprint, James Ashton’s recently published history of Arm. It will help you understand the intricate network of technology companies that hold the world’s electron......more

Goodreads review by Austin on December 30, 2024

THE EVERYTHING BLUEPRINT is an illuminating case study of how one British semiconductor and software design company – Arm Holdings – infiltrated billions of households, workplaces, and vehicles with its proprietary processor designs since its founding in 1990. Author James Ashton, a British financia......more

Goodreads review by Arnoud on August 04, 2023

This book mixes two related topics: the evolution over the last 30 years of the microchip industry and the story of the origins, development, growth and success of ARM, the Cambridge headquartered designer of RISC processors, which has become the standard for many applications where power consumptio......more

Goodreads review by Ty on March 23, 2024

ARM has been a big part of my life for more than 25 years now, so it was fun to read about how it all started. The tales of corporate shenanigans over the years were also fun. I feel like the author was overly ambitious in not only wanting to tell the story of ARM, but also place it in context in th......more

Quotes

'This is a gripping and inspiring read. The Everything Blueprint reveals how a British technology company fought to become a global one - and achieved this thanks to a powerful combination of homegrown talent, international collaboration between brilliant people, and dogged ambition. Arm's success is proof that in today's connected world it is vital to go abroad to achieve scale. The key to this story is a fierce determination to be No. 1 - and never giving into complacency.' Sir James Dyson, British inventor, industrial designer and entrepreneur

'The Everything Blueprint provides the hidden history of the most important company most people have never heard of. We all rely on Arm's chip technology but James Ashton provides a dramatic account of where Arm came from-and how this company will shape the future of computing and artificial intelligence. A revealing and insightful biography of the company whose blueprints define the digital world.' Chris Miller, author of CHIP WAR: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology

'This is an engrossing history of the most important company to emerge in the UK in the last 40 years and how it fits in to the world's most vital industry. It's also a sobering reminder that if we are careless about Arm's future we can give up on our aspirations to be a leading tech nation.' Rory Cellan-Jones, former BBC technology correspondent and author of Always On: Hope and Fear in the Social Smartphone Era

'James Ashton weaves his way through the intricate geopolitics of the semiconductor industry with an insider's view of Arm's remarkable rise. From Silicon Valley to Taiwan via Cambridge, this book provides an essential account of a vital industry, and, in an era infused with artificial intelligence, reminds us that technology remains inherently human.' Reid Hoffman, partner at Greylock and co-founder of LinkedIn

'Swaffham, Bulbeck in England is not writ as large in the lore of the chip industry as California's Mountain View (birthplace of Intel) and Sunnyvale (birthplace of nVidia), or Taiwan's Hsinchu, the cradle of TSMC. But this village should be in the register because that's where the computer world first encountered ARM, a company whose tale James Ashton deftly weaves into a tapestry stretching from the first transistor to chatGPT.' Sir Michael Moritz, author of Return of the Little Kingdom: Steve Jobs, the Creation of Apple, and How it Changed the World

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