The Silicon Boys: And Their Valley of Dreams [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

Frage: Wo lernen amerikanische Kids die Facetten des Millionärsdaseins als Teil ihres Highschool-Lehrplans? Wo klagen die Gäste einer vornehmen Gartenparty über defekte mobile Spülklosetts der gehobeneren Preisklasse? Wo schafft es eine Schultombola 439.000 Dollar einzunehmen? Die Antwort: natürlich in Silicon Valley.

In seinem Buch The Silicon Boys and Their Valley of Dreams fängt David A. Kaplan all diese Maßlosigkeiten und noch vieles mehr ein. Kaplans Buch ist die Geschichte von Silicon Valley, angefangen damals, als Professor Frederick Terman von der Stanford University David Packard und Bill Hewlett dazu ermunterte, ihre eigene Firma zu gründen, bis hin zu der Zeit, als Sequoia Capital eine Million Dollar in eine Neugründung von Jerry Yang und David Filo investierte, die sich Yahoo! nannte. Dazwischen liegen die vielen Legenden des Valley, darunter Fairchild Semiconductor, Intel, Kleiner Perkins, Apple, Oracle und Netscape, wie auch einige seiner beachtenswertesten Fehlschläge und Tragödien, wie William Shockley und Gary Kildall. Während das Buch mit dem Prunk von Woodside, Kalifornien, beginnt, schließt es überraschenderweise mit Bob Metcalfe in Portland, Maine, an der Ostküste. Der Gründer von 3Com verließ Silicon Valley, um sich in einer "frischeren, lebendigeren" Gegend niederzulassen.

Beim Nachzeichnen der kurzen Geschichte des Technologie-Tales entdeckt Newsweek-Autor Kaplan eine gar nicht so subtile Veränderung in dessen Werten. "Niemand scheint sich in Silicon Valley mehr so richtig zu vergnügen", schreibt er. "Leidenschaften sind zu reinen Berufen geworden, Impulsivität zu Zwanghaftigkeit... Das Valley war einst eine neue Maschine. Sie veränderte die Welt. Möglicherweise tut sie das wieder. Aber die Maschine hat ihre Seele verloren."

The Silicon Boys ist eine gut durchdachte und farbige Lektüre für alle, die sich für einen der dynamischsten Plätze dieser Erde interessieren. --Harry C. Edwards

Pop quiz: Where are American kids taught the nuances of being millionaires as part of their junior high curriculum? Where do guests at a posh outdoor party grouse about the defects of high-end flushable Porta-Johns? Where does a school auction rake in $439,000? The answer: Silicon Valley, of course. David A. Kaplan captures all that excess and more in The Silicon Boys.

Kaplan's book is a history of the Valley, from the time when Stanford professor Frederick Terman encouraged David Packard and Bill Hewlett to establish their own company to when Sequoia Capital invested $1 million in a startup founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo. In between are the many Valley legends, including Fairchild Semiconductor, Intel, Kleiner Perkins, Apple, Oracle, and Netscape--as well as some of its most notable failures and tragedies, such as William Shockley and Gary Kildall. While the book begins with the opulence of Woodside, California, it ends surprisingly enough in Portland, Maine, with Bob Metcalfe, founder of 3Com, who fled the Valley for something "fresher" and "more alive."

As he traces the short history of the area, Kaplan, a senior writer at Newsweek, detects a not-so-subtle change in its values. He writes, "Nobody appears to be having quite as good a time in Silicon Valley. Passions have become mere professions; impulsiveness is now compulsiveness.... The Valley once was a new machine. It changed the world. It may do so yet again. But the machine has no soul anymore." Here's a thoughtful and colorful read for anyone interested in one of the most dynamic places on the planet. --Harry C. Edwards

Computer screens will never look the same after users read this journey to the heart of cyberspace, where silicon combines with testosterone to produce preposterous wealth. Silicon Valley looks a lot like Oz in Newsweek senior writer Kaplan's historical survey of the ways and means of the idiosyncratic and paranoid zillionaires who gather in the sunny California. Garage pioneers and pubescent geeks have changed the planet in a single generation by dint of talent, ego, and great timing. Kaplan succinctly tells the whole story. Starting before Mr. Hewlett met Mr. Packard and before the protean Homebrew Club first gathered at Stanford, taking us up through the salient points of Uncle Sam's complaints against Microsoft and to the remarkable market bubbles of Netscape and Yahoo!, his bright text explains why many millions of mice now skitter across many millions of mousepads. The tales of the important innovations, start-ups, IPOs, and mergers (``mergers'' in the sense that a herring merges with a shark) are neatly recounted. The tekkies and gearheads do their things with solid-state physics and elemental electronics, but it's about disintegrated people as much as integrated circuits. The character sketches and the business shenanigans of the computer-age pioneers is prime social history. The characters include, of course, Jobs and Wozniak, the late, wacky William Schockley (who went to Munich for staff, thinking ``German engineers might be more amenable to a tyrant''), playboy Larry Ellison, super money guy John Doerr and, perforce, Mr. Gates, as well as a score of other technoids, visionaries, venture capitalists, and assorted cocks of the computer walk. It's about changing the world; it's not about money, they say. Be assured: it's about money. (Still, the inhabitants walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Microsoft, fearing some evil). A clever book, entertaining and informative for novice and propellerhead alike. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Silicon Valley is a true-life Tomorrowland. Far more than an engine of economic growth and worldwide symbol of technological know-how, the Valley competes with Hollywood and Washington in the cultures of money, celebrity, and success. It is a place where tinkerers become Internet tycoons literally overnight -- a place where everyday life meets virtual reality meets unadulterated myth. It's also the only place in the world where you can buy $14 ostrich salami or pay $1 million for a fixer-upper home.

In the first full-scale portrait of this fabled high-tech corner of California, an award-winning Newsweek culture writer traces the sky-rocket rise of Silicon Valley from 1938, when Bill Hewlett and David Packard started in a Palo Alto garage, to the wired corporate "campuses" of today, where young billionaires confront "The Prince of Darkness" (Bill Gates) and "Elvis" himself, Larry Ellison. We see Steve Jobs evolve from prodigy to parish to elder statesman, observe the influence of venture capitalists such as John Doerr, and watch a new generation of electronic alchemists turn megabytes into megabucks at the head of companies like Netscape and Yahoo!

Presents a portrait of Silicon Valley, its entrepreneurs, and the products and companies that have revolutionized the computer age.