cover image High Stakes, No Prisoners: How I Won My David and Goliath Battle in Silicon Valley

High Stakes, No Prisoners: How I Won My David and Goliath Battle in Silicon Valley

Charles H. Ferguson. Crown Business, $27.5 (400pp) ISBN 978-0-8129-3143-3

All the characters readers would expect to find in a ""behind the scenes"" look at what it's like to build and then sell one of the first Internet-related companies are present and fully accounted for in this first-hand account, written by a coauthor of Computer Wars. We see the venture capitalists who are out to maximize their return on investment in the fledgling company at the entrepreneur's expense, the voracious large competitors who threaten to crush it like a bug and the stumbling support professionals--everyone from lawyers to headhunters--who often turn out to be more of a hindrance than a help. Ferguson tells what it was like to create Vermeer Technologies, which produced one of the first software products that made creating Web pages fairly easy, and then sell it to Microsoft for $133 million some 20 months later. While the account is richly detailed, Ferguson's tone is smug and his attitude toward a great many of the people he describes travels the short arc between patronizing and dismissive. The story of Vermeer's creation is bracketed by an overview of the high-tech industry, clearly showing that Ferguson has an interesting view of the issues--both great and small--raised by the remarkable growth of the Internet. It's a shame that he didn't give us more perspective--and less invective--on the travails associated with building his company. (Nov.) FYI: The author will donate his earnings from this book to a nonprofit educational organization.