'The Man Behind the Microchip': The Next Small Thing - New York Times

'The Man Behind the Microchip': The Next Small Thing - New York Times: "''If nearly any invention is examined closely enough, it almost immediately becomes apparent that the innovation was not the product of a single mind, even if it is attributed to one,'' Leslie Berlin writes. ''Invention is best understood as a team effort.''

In America, we're conditioned to valorize the individual genius. To some extent we owe this caricature to biographies of famous inventors, because they play to the lone-gunman theory of brilliance. But many increasingly complex pieces of high-tech engineering -- the Apple computer, the mobile phone, the Web browser -- were the collaborative products of large teams, each person doing a small piece of work: less ''eureka'' than barn-raising. "