Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure Story - Hardcover

Kaplan, Jerry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0395711339 ISBN 13: 9780395711330

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (T), 1995

Synopsis

How do the big bad boys of computing like Bill Gates, John Sculley, and Jim Cannavino really operate? Read this book and find out. Without an ounce of malice, Jerry Kaplan's Startup spins a wonderful kiss-and-tell about the people and the politics of computers... As far as computer industry books go, this one is a winner.

About this title

Review:

The founder of the visionary, yet doomed, GO Corporation kept notes throughout his years at the helm, thinking that one day he would produce a book. It shows. This is a vivid and lively rise-and-fall account of a company born to create a pen-based computer. It begins on a corporate jet with the author and fellow industry visionary Mitchell Kapor, founder of Lotus, sharing a vision of pen computing. From there, Startup quickly leaps to the day-to-day challenges of hiring staff, constantly reassessing and readjusting goals, and coping with the stress of endless rounds of venture capital funding. That Kaplan, in his first attempt at running a company, battles with the top forces at Microsoft, IBM, and other industry giants to bring the idea to market, only makes the story more compelling. His company's ultimate failure says more about a cutthroat industry than about the quality of Kaplan's product. This is a real David and Goliath tale. If you've ever wondered why things go right or wrong, how competition can kill you, or how financing really works within a small startup, read this book!

From Publishers Weekly:

Kaplan founded GO Corp. in 1987 to develop a pen-based portable computer. He lost control of the company to an investor group that included AT&T in late 1993 after spending nearly $75 million in a failed effort to create a marketable product, and GO's successor company was closed down by AT&T in July 1994. What separates Kaplan's tale from other start-up stories is the insight he provides about dealing with two of America's largest computer companies?IBM and Microsoft. Kaplan negotiated with layers of IBM bureaucracy to get the company to invest tens of millions of dollars in GO, and yet with the downsizing that rocked IBM, Kaplan doubted whether anyone remaining at IBM knew or cared about its GO involvement. GO's relationship with Microsoft evolved from a potential partnership to a fierce competition. As the two companies became more competitive, the pressure Microsoft exerted on the industry to support its own pen-based efforts over those of GO makes one think that federal judge Stanley Sporkin is right in trying to reopen the antitrust investigation of the software powerhouse. Readers interested in entrepreneurial adventurism will find Kaplan's tale entertaining, but the book will appeal most to those familiar with the computer industry.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (T)
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0395711339
• ISBN 13: 9780395711330
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 322