This is one of a number of recent books from authors who had a front row seat at the birth of the digital economy. In this case the journey unfolds through the proxy of Four—Amazon, Google, Apple, and Facebook.

The prose is quick and witty. Some of the witty is admittedly built on more than a whiff of cynicism: “At its core, Apple fills two instinctual needs: to feel closer to God and be more attractive to the opposite sex.”

And the book is chock full of interesting trivia: “The cocktail of low-cost product and premium prices has landed Apple with a cash pile greater than the GDP of Denmark, the Russian stock market, and the market cap of Boeing, Airbus, and Nike combined.”

This book is entertainingly written, but it comes off much more as a rant about how bad these companies are than a straightforward look at how they operate. If it were a newspaper article, this would go in the opinion section, not the business section.

This book is entertainingly written, but it comes off much more as a rant about how bad these companies are than a straightforward look at how they operate. If it were a newspaper article, this would go in the opinion section, not the business section.