This is the inside story of a small group of mavericks, eccentrics and geniuses who turned Artificial Intelligence from a fringe enthusiasm into a transformative technology. It's the story of how that technology became big business, creating vast fortunes and sparking intense rivalries. And it's the story of breakneck advances that will shape our lives for many decades to come - both for good and for ill. 'One day soon, when computers are safely driving our roads and speaking to us in complete sentences, we'll look back at Cade Metz's elegant, sweeping Genius Makers as their birth story - the Genesis for an age of sentient machines.' Brad Stone, author of The Everything Store and The Upstarts 'A ringside seat at what may turn out to be the pivotal episode in human history . . . easy and fun to read . . . undeniably charming.' Forbes