
eBoys
The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work
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Narrated by:
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Eric Conger
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 listeners the most precise and enlightening account of the ways in which venture capitalists think, evaluate prospects, and wield influence.
The author 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."
©2000 by Randall E. Stross(P)2000 Random House, Inc.
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A little pompous
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Eboys is about Benchmark Capital of Menlo Park, California -- arguably the #1 venture capital firm in the world. It chronicles the day to day dealings of the partners, their interactions with entrepreneurs from all walks of life, and the multi-billion dollar companies they've funded... the most prominent of which is eBay, a company that made all of the founding partners 300 million dollars each.
This is an awesome book for a budding entrepreneur -- it really gives you an inside fly-on-the-wall look at how the mysterious and sometimes daunting world of high stakes venture capital works. But it's not just a how-to guide in obtaining venture capital, as the real life stories of the Eboys are fascinating, entertaining, and incredibly inspiring.
Don't think about it -- GET THIS BOOK!
THE book on inside venture capital investing
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Could have been a lot better
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Great story!
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The description of the attitudes and lingo at Benchmark and other venture firms in the book seem out of place. The author seems to be describing the macho environment of an investment bank rather than the more subdued approach of venture capitalists. But maybe that's the way things actually were at Benchmark in the late 1990s.
As a venture capitalist myself, I was surprised by the apparent lack of due diligence and the thin premises upon which the partners seemed to make their investment decisions. I'm sure that my perception of this is in part a consequence of the author's choice to gloss over the nitty gritty details. But explicit dialogue between the partners shows that the partners did in fact have a shoot-from-the-hip style. I am hardly qualified to question the partners' instincts when they were so successful. But I do think it is a wildly inaccurate portrayal of the industry as a whole.
Entertaining but misinformed
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Enjoyable Education on Early Days of E-Venturing
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Insight into venture capitalism
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What is interesting is many of the companies that made it through the bubble collapse are still around and even profitable, and have changed our lives. While most of us still go to the store to get grocieries, how we research purchases, buy books, music and many other items has changed.
It's worth adding that Eric Conger does a great job of narrating a very good book and bringing the entertaining dialog to life.
If this is at all an interesting subject to you, I recomend this book.
Interesting, entertaining
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On the verge of a bobble
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Great insight into VC
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