Search Salon

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Recently in Salon Technology

Microsoft, Mahir and money, money, money
A software superpower is declared a monopoly, free software rakes in billions and money makes the world go round: The year in tech.
By Janelle Brown, Mark Gimein, Andrew Leonard and Kaitlin Quistgaard
[12/15/99]

Review
MP3: Here, there, everywhere
The latest digital music players let you play MP3s on your home stereo, in your car or on the run -- but are they any good?
By Janelle Brown
[12/14/99]

Technology: View from the top
High-speed Net access that's out of this world
John Koehler retired from a career at Hughes Electronics and the CIA to build fast Net connections on satellites already in orbit.
By Mark Compton
[12/13/99]

21st Challenge
The perfect e-gift
What should you order online for Bill Clinton or Bill Gates, George W. Bush or Jesse Ventura?
By Charlie Varon and Jim Rosenau
[12/11/99]

Dear Diary
Andrew Smales' astonishing Diaryland site provides the format. You supply the secrets.
By Todd Levin
[12/10/99]

Complete archives for Technology

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Two new books -- "High St@kes, No Prisoners: A Winner's Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars," and "Renegades of the Empire: How Three Software Warriors Started a Revolution Behind the Walls of Fortress Microsoft" -- demonstrate the tedious inevitability of the martial metaphor.

Don't get me wrong -- I like tales of the campaigns as much as the next guy. A well-wrought war story can easily hold my attention. As a child I loved the "Flashman" series. Biographies of Churchill and MacArthur have kept me awake far past midnight.

High St@kes, No Prisoners: A Winner's Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars By Charles Ferguson Random House 350 pages Buy High St@kes, No Prisoners Renegades of the Empire: How Three Software Warriors Started a Revolution Behind the Walls of Fortress Microsoft By Michael Drummond Crown Publishers 290 pages Buy Renegades of the Empire

If only the captains of the infotech wars had one-tenth that style and élan. Today's cyber-warriors, having traded their sabers for expense reports, lack a certain kind of gut-level appeal. For instance, there's an account in "High St@kes, No Prisoners" where author Charles Ferguson -- founder of Vermeer Technologies, now playing the risky game of mid-life autobiography -- recounts a chance meeting with legendary venture capitalist Andy Marcuvitz: "[O]n a flight from Boston to San Francisco, I used frequent-flier miles to upgrade to first class and found myself two rows away from Andy. Since the seat next to him was empty, I moved over and sat with him. Our conversation started out reasonably enough, but quickly turned into a full-blown, brutal argument."

This is not the kind of ripping yarn I had hoped for in a book of such provocative title. Instead of an archly rendered portrait of the noble warrior, I'm treated to a composite of the kind of obnoxious, name-dropping, dot-com weenie I've for years had to resist throttling in-flight, as he attempts to stalk, beg and finally argue his way into some VC's checkbook. (Just when did that ever become a viable funding strategy? Have I missed something?) And he doesn't even have the derring-do to spring for a first-class ticket.

This book seems to be built on the same general formula as most of the new geek-legionnaire potboilers: Take a relatively dry technical/business history and recast as a riveting, Information Age swashbuckler, peppered with lively techie slang and exaggerations of high-octane, expense-accounted biz junkets. I do wonder just how many readers outside Silicon Valley and the nation's MBA programs will be terribly scintillated: "See our intrepid hero as he scouts tomorrow's market niches! Thrill as he captures venture capital! Marvel as he tap-dances like Fred Astaire through the pre-IPO road show! Tremble as he mightily repels competitors!" Yawn. Where, readers may ask, have all the real heroes gone?

Next page | Hijacking a Fortune 500