The Silicon Boys

Gold gave birth to the modern California in the 1850s. Now Silicon Valley is the "wild west" of the late-20th century. The new frontier is cyberspace and the new gold, silicon. This work explores the stories of the venture capitalists who were to become some of the 79,000 millionaires living there.

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Gold gave birth to the modern California in the 1850s. Now Silicon Valley, California is the "wild west" of the late-20th century. The new frontier is cyberspace and the new gold is silicon. Mix together obsessed engineers, marketeers, venture capitalists and even a lawyer or two with nobody in charge except rampant capitalism and you get the "Silicon Boys"; including "The Woz", Bill Gates and others who set up companies worth billions of dollars that became household names - Apple, Microsoft, Intel and Oracle. This book introduces the venture capitalists who adopted the philosophy that you can only lose your money once but you can also borrow it again to make a return of 1000 times your investment. It also reveals the mistake that cost IBM $100 billion and got Bill Gates started; how Oracle started on $2000 in 1977 and is now worth $35 billion; those who didn't make it.