Cutting the Cord: The Cell Phone Has Transformed Humanity
About this audiobook
One of Time Magazine’s Top 100 Inventors in History shares an insider’s story of the cellphone, how it changed the world—and a view of where it’s headed.
While at Motorola in the 1970s, wireless communications pioneer Martin Cooper invented the first handheld mobile phone. But the cellphone as we know it today almost didn’t happen. Now, in Cutting the Cord, Cooper takes listeners inside the stunning breakthroughs, devastating failures, and political battles in the quest to revolutionize—and control—how people communicate. It’s a dramatic tale involving brilliant engineers, government regulators, lobbyists, police, quartz crystals, and a horse.
Industry skirmishes sparked a political war in Washington to prevent a monopolistic company from dominating telecommunications. The drama culminated in the first-ever public call made on a handheld, portable telephone—by Cooper himself.
The story of the cell phone has much to teach about innovation, strategy, and management. But the story of wireless communications is far from finished. This book also relates Cooper’s vision of the future. From the way we work and the way children learn to the ways we approach medicine and healthcare, advances in the cellphone will continue to reshape our world for the better.
About the author
Martin Cooper is an engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur. He is known as the “father of the cell phone,” after creating the world’s first cell phone at Motorola—and making the first public call on it. Over nearly three decades at Motorola, Cooper contributed to the development of pagers, two-way radio dispatch systems, quartz crystal manufacture, and more. A serial entrepreneur, he and his wife, Arlene Harris, have cofounded numerous wireless technology companies.
Traber Burns is a native of south Louisiana and graduate of Tulane University. After graduating from the American Conservatory Theatre's Advanced Training Program in San Francisco, he spent the next 30 years working primarily in regional theatre, with occasional film and television work. He moved to Los Angeles in the Fall of 2003 (after the birth of his son).
