The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers

Tom Standage's history of the telegraph — the nineteenth century's version of the internet — tracing how an invention first dismissed as incapable of carrying anything worthwhile collapsed distance, created the modern news cycle, and spawned its own early hackers, pranksters, and market manipulation. Standage was digital editor of The Economist, and the book reads as a pattern book for every communications revolution since.

Cuban's recommendation — that the Victorian Internet has a lot to teach about the impact of the telegraph, including the birth of front-running — is the pattern book lesson: every new communications medium is first dismissed, then over-hyped, then taken for granted as infrastructure the moment it connects a market. For a founder, the useful insight is that network inflection points arrive on the decade scale, and that the 'front running' — the people who move first on the new speed — capture the outsized returns.