High Stakes, No Prisoners : A Winner's Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars - Hardcover

Ferguson, Charles; Ferguson, Charles H.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0812931432 ISBN 13: 9780812931433

Publisher: Crown Business, 1999

Synopsis

High Stakes, No Prisoners is a sharp, brilliant insider's account of the way Silicon Valley really works: the sharks, powerful incumbents, and old-boy networks who play hardball all the time and the geniuses who make the products that have changed the world.

Charles Ferguson started Vermeer Technologies and turned his very cool, very big idea into FrontPage, the first software product for creating and managing a website. A mere twenty months after starting the company, he sold it to Microsoft for $133 million, making a fortune for himself and his associates. FrontPage now has millions of users and is bundled with Microsoft Office. But getting there wasn't always fun.

High Stakes, No Prisoners is the book about the Valley and reflects Ferguson's unique experience not only as a successful entrepreneur but also as a policy analyst, computer industry consultant, and academic.

Reveals A Great Internet Success Story

High Stakes, No Prisoners is a highly personal account of what it really takes to win as a high-technology startup, especially in the Internet industry, where any speed below warp nine doesn't get you to takeoff. From securing venture capital to getting both the strategy and the technology right, from dealing with Microsoft's power to working with some of the quirkiest, smartest people on the planet, it's all here. The Valley story has never been told with this much depth and honesty.
Reports from the Trenches of the Internet Wars Vermeer was right in the middle of the battle between Microsoft and Netscape. Both companies wanted to either acquire Vermeer or kill it.

Skewers the Sacred Cows of the Valley

Yes, Microsoft declared war on Netscape, but the latter's demise was caused as much by itself as by Microsoft. Ferguson, for example, sees Jim Barksdale, the former CEO of Netscape, as arrogant, ignorant about technology, distracted by politics and glamour, and running a company in partnership with a twenty-three-year-old who'd never held a serious job before." Here's Netscape as it has never before been revealed.

Explains the Real Problem with Microsoft Microsoft's business model is unquestionably one of the great creations of American business. But its power has become so great, its behavior so unrestrained, and its abuses so dangerous that intelligent action has to be taken. Ferguson's analysis of what must be done is a major contribution to one of the most important public-policy questions of our time.

Silicon Valley is the crown jewel of the American economy and a critical driver of American technology. It's electric, addictive, vulgar, full of brilliance, brutally fair and brutally unfair, fiercely competitive, often dishonest, tremendously exciting, and utterly unique.With High Stakes, No Prisoners, the real story has finally been told--with frankness, insight, and great wit.

About this title

Review

If you've ever gone out to lunch with a coworker and suddenly found yourself witness to a savage stream of unflattering assessments of bosses, wicked gossip, and the-emperor-has-no-clothes analysis of your industry, you'll know what it's like to read High Stakes, No Prisoners. Ferguson, an MIT Ph.D., started up a company called Vermeer Technologies in 1994, a rough time for startups in Silicon Valley. The country was coming out of a recession, the stock market was stagnant, and the Internet wasn't yet taken seriously by those with money to invest. Vermeer had a software program called FrontPage that only someone who understood the coming power of the Net could appreciate. Even in Silicon Valley, few were so prescient.

Most of High Stakes is the story of Vermeer, from its startup to its sale to Microsoft. (Now bundled with Microsoft Office, FrontPage is used by more than 3 million people worldwide.) Along the way, Ferguson met the players in the Valley and formed strong opinions of them. He describes Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale as an egomaniac and technological dolt in way, way over his head. Oracle founder Larry Ellison is "severely warped." One of his best lines sums up Silicon Valley as a place where "one finds little evidence that the meek shall inherit the earth."

But this isn't just the technological equivalent of WWF trash-talking. Ferguson is very tough on himself, too, and details his own shortcomings as a person and a businessman. Mostly, it's a gloves-off account of how things really get done in high technology today, as refreshingly honest and acerbic an account as you'll ever read. --Lou Schuler

From the Back Cover

"A minefield of a book . . . few give a better portrait of the financial machinations that govern the life of a start-up."        
-- Scott Herhold, San Jose Mercury News

"The Liar's Poker of the Internet economy . . . a wickedly funny book, in its way just as amusing as The New New Thing, but it is also more systematically informative about the technology business."        
-- James Fallows, The New York Review of Books

"A fine, edgy story . . . Microsoft takes no prisoners, and neither does Charles Ferguson."
-- Steve Hamm, Business Week

"Great reading . . . Ferguson has a flair for describing the inside angle, and he relishes serving up unflattering descriptions of some of the tech industry's biggest names."
-- Thomas Goetz, The Industry Standard

"A terrific inside account of the journey from inspiration to start-up to IPO to takeover target. Fascinating."        
-- Chicago Tribune

Edition details

• Publisher: Crown Business
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0812931432
• ISBN 13: 9780812931433
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400