If you want to understand the 1990s, you have to understand venture capitalists. These are the guys who listen to business pitches by the score, the financial world equivalent of miners turning over tons of earth trying to find the precious metals that lie beneath it. They're looking for the next Amazon.com, the next Yahoo, the next eBay. Stross, who teaches business at San Jose State University, just happened to be there when a venture firm called Benchmark Capital found the first eBay. eBoys tells the story of how a group of not-quite-middle-aged men came to make an investment that returned a Silicon Valley-record 100,000 per cent. Stross is a gifted storyteller and skilfully weaves the personal histories of the Benchmark partners in with the stories of how Benchmark came to back such companies as Priceline and Webvan (a company that delivers groceries to your home). We meet guys who weren't born to privilege, who took a number of unconventional routes into the venture capital business--probably the most intriguing is Dave Beirne, a hyper-aggressive executive recruiter who gets into venture capital after realising that VCs are the ones who really call the shots at high-tech start-up companies. We also see the problems Silicon Valley guys have when they try to dot.com the bricks-and-mortar world--the short tale of an aborted partnership between Benchmark and Toys "R" Us shows all the reasons why the old economy is so mystified by the new.
Anyone interested in how business works should find something of interest in eBoys. From the organisational structure and corporate culture of Benchmark, to the histories and personalities of its partners, to its adventures in the world of Internet start-ups--it's all a nice digital camera snapshot of how successful businesses and businessmen look, think and mine gold in today's economy. --Lou Schuler (Review copyright Amazon.co.uk)
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