Recommended by
- Elon Musk: "Yeah, it's funny you should mention that. I think that's Heinlein's best book, honestly." source ↗
- Paul Graham The novel’s sentient computer Mike, together with Terry Winograd’s SHRDLU demo, is what drew Graham toward artificial intelligence in college. source ↗
Summary
Robert Heinlein's science fiction classic about a lunar penal colony that revolts against Earth. The revolution is organized with the help of Mike, a sentient computer, and is built on the colony's scarcest resource: freedom. Part heist, part political treatise, it's one of the genre's great libertarian fables.
For founders
For founders, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is a story about building systems that govern themselves — a colony, a market, a company — and about the role of intelligence (artificial or human) in outmaneuvering incumbents. Elon Musk called it Heinlein's best book; Paul Graham credits it as one of the two things that made him want to work on AI.