I personally detested the The Baroque Cycle, which was boring and badly written, though possibly useful as a cure for insomnia.

However, Stephenson's other books had a lot of good stuff in them, and were actually enjoyable. Snow Crash and Diamond Age contain quite a few notes on economics; and the middle part of Diamond Age consists on a brief overview of the history of computer programming, from Turing Machines to modern information networks. And Anathem is basically a philosophy/epistemology/astronomy primer.

Note that I disagree with some of the key assumptions Stephenson seems to be making in those books (especially Diamond Age and Anathem), but I can still suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy them.