by Randall E. Stross
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| List Price: | $25.95 |
| Average Rating: |  |
| Lowest New Price: | $1.93 |
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Product Description
The first inside account of life within a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, eBoys is the fascinating true story of the six tall men who backed eBay, Webvan, and other billion-dollar start-ups that are transforming the Internet and setting a new pace for the economy.
Randall Stross, author of acclaimed books on Microsoft and Steve Jobs, blends a business historian's perspective with a journalist's flair for suspenseful storytelling to look at wealth creation up close. For two years, Stross gained unprecedented access to the venture capitalists at Benchmark, an upstart firm founded by thirtysomething renegades whose average height happens to be 6´5´´. Since Benchmark's founding in 1995, each partner's net worth has increased, on average, $100 million annually.
Stross was present as the Benchmark boys debated which businesses to support, and by recounting their conversations in testosterone-rich detail, he offers readers the most precise and enlightening account of the ways in which venture capitalists think, evaluate prospects, and wield influence.
Stross also gained access to a number of the Benchmark-backed start-ups, including a small, privately held San Jose company called eBay. The value of the company grew from $20 million to more than $21 billion within two years of Benchmark's investment, an increase of 100,000 percent. Business Week called it "probably the best venture capital investment of all time."
Venture capitalists have become iconic symbols of our time, just as investment bankers, investigative journalists, and hippies defined previous eras. In eBoys, Randall Stross has vividly captured the interplay of ambition, personality, experimentation, and risk, all acted out, larger than life, as the men of Benchmark and the entrepreneurs they back play their remarkable roles in the new world of Internet commerce and the creation of vast, sudden wealth.
Amazon.com Review
If you want to understand the 1990s, you have to understand venture capitalists. These are the people who listen to business pitches by the score, the financial-world equivalent of miners turning over tons of earth in search of precious metal. They're looking for the next Amazon.com, the next Yahoo!, the next eBay. Randall E. Stross, who teaches business history at San José State University, just happened to be there when a firm called Benchmark Capital discovered 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 of 100,000 percent. Stross is a gifted storyteller who weaves the personal histories of the Benchmark partners with stories of how the firm came to back such companies as Priceline.com and Webvan. We meet guys who weren't born to privilege, men who took unconventional routes into the venture capital business. Probably the most intriguing is Dave Beirne, a hyperaggressive executive recruiter who went into the business after realizing venture capitalists are the ones who really call the shots at high-tech start-ups. 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 illustrates 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 organizational 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 a digital snapshot that reveals how successful businesses look, think, and mine gold in today's economy. --Lou Schuler
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 a must-read for anyone in the startup world, 2006-10-08
As someone in the startup industry, hearing the VC point of view was very interesting. Add to that a refresher course on several of the important industry-shaping deals and an entertaining down-to-earth delivery style, and you got a certain winner on your hands.
Highly recommended, you will not put this down. I sure didn't.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 Hubris meets Homoeroticism, 2005-10-06
I give this book 4 stars for its inadvertently hysterical comedy. Everything you need to know to understand how the tech bubble formed and why it burst so dramatically is here--not in the story the author tells, but in the pseudo-macho, we-are-the-masters-of-the-universe, lets-measure-each-other's-penises subtext that runs throughout.
This is cultural history at its best. Not unlike the sex-ed books of the '50s and '60s that give us fascinating glimpses of the contemporary oppression of women, this book accidentally paints the late '90s silicon valley as the hotbed of homoeroticism that it was. The characters are greedy, hubris-filled, and completely blinded by the slightest scent of money--and the author worships their every move and utterance, seeing them as they see themselves: as gods among mere mortals.
There's not much here for the businessman, but plenty for the cultural historian.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
A good read with some good lessons, 2005-01-26
I doubt "eBoys" was intended to read as a period piece, but it certainly does in the post-technology bubble world. There are a couple things that come across loud and clear: first, these venture capitalists were not blind to the bubble that was forming; second, if they wanted to stay alive and relevant in their field, they needed to keep financing new companies and unwillingly participate in furthering the bubble.
The story is well-told and gives you an insider's view of how at least one venture capital firm makes the decision of who gets funding and who doesn't. It also serves as a cautionary tale about how even the most sophisticated investors get sucked into bubble mentality.
A valuable read for investors, entreprenuers, and aspiring venture capitalists.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Amazing. Eboys + The Perfect Store = future billionaire., 2005-01-18
I stand corrected on my earlier review of "The Perfect Store" -- Eboys has now usurped the title of "quite possibly the best book I've ever read." O.k. so I tend to exaggerate after I read a really great book, but this is definitely in my top 10 books of all time... and I'm a voracious reader (500+ easy... at age 28).
Informative, educational, entertaining, instructive, and incredibly motivating and inspiring -- for all those with an insatiable entrepreneurial spirit like the one I have, Eboys can be thought of as an entrepreneurial bible... or maybe hymnal would be more appropriate. I read the book and now I'm listening to the Audible audiobook... simply awesome... again! This is a must-have book for any budding Bill Gates, Micheal Dell, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, or PIERRE OMIDYAR out there. Heck I even sent Benchmark the executive summary for my business even though they don't invest in my industry... I was just that impressed with those guys.
Read it. Save it. Refer to it. You'll be glad you did.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
not profound, but not prosaic either, 2004-10-01
Broad overview of the netherworld of venture capitalists as well as short take on eBay, the unlikely "profitable" internet company that learned how to scale its technology and augment its customer base with the help of Benchmark. As other reviews will corroboarte, it's this book's ebullient writing that salvages it from a more tepid rating.
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