The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest: A Silicon Valley Novel

by Po Bronson

Book Overview

Lloyd Acheson's firm, Omega Logic, needs a next-generation chip to keep his stock price propped up. Hank Menzinger squandered his research lab's cash reserves in a failed IPO and needs Omega Logic's... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679456996
• ISBN13: 9780679456995
• Release Date: February 1997
• Publisher: Random House
• Length: 291 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.0" x 1.3" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Excellent!

One of the best books I've ever read. If you turn the last page and feel like you've "understood" everything in the book [those of you who feel this way know what I mean], then make sure you visit the author's website. You'll find many wonderful writings there.

Suspenseful Genius (without a cherry on top)

Many of the books I have read in the past I can never put down: this was one of them.I attribute my luck of reading findings to my author selection. I was looking for a Wired Magazine-type author, and this was exactly that.He did an EXCELLENT job at character depth. He took people's personalities and detailed them wonderfully. I loved many of the relations he used when the characters were being described, and the book was definitely constructed to love Andy and hate the guys from above. He surpassed this goal.However, don't anticipate a very intricate ending: it made me only hope there is a sequel to this book.

Brilliant

Po Bronson agains shows his grasp of the ironic is well beyond any other current author. After disembowelling Wall Street in Bombardiers, Po grabs Silicon Valley and exposes the "infite loop" of money, ideas and egos that makes the Valley machine hum. A Machivellian masterpiece! Po, take on Capitol Hill next!!

A fun look at Silicon Valley high-tech agenda & gamesmanship

The First $20 Million is a pretty cool look at the Silicon Valley tech roller coaster and the behind-the-scenes bull**** that keep the best products and technology safely inside start-ups and development labs and out of the hands of end-users. The story is about a group inside one think tank that is attempting to develop an inexpensive personal computer, much to the dismay of the rest of the company and to outside interests whose profitability would be hurt by such a development. The plot is apparently very close to real events in the valley, with a few clearly identifiable Silicon Valley characters. One high-profile figure was apparently ruffled enough by the book to criticize it publicly, which makes reading it all the more appealing. The novel works on its own as a clever, enjoyable story without the need for a "wink-wink" cognoscenti perspective. This book is part high-tech intrigue and part "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," although the characters in this novel have less of the self-conscious, almost contrived quirkiness of those in Bronson's Bombardiers. In both books, Bronson demonstrates a genuine insider's knowledge of his subject matter. (When he runs out of former careers will he run out of novels?)In $20 Million, he is perhaps the first novelist to craft 3-dimensional engineers and programmers, dispelling some of our myths about computer "geeks" with pencil-pockets, while simultaneously confirming some of them. $20 Million is a thoroughly enjoyable novel, with interesting characters and a cynical, high-tech perspective.

Excellent modern adventure

The First 20 Million is Always the Hardest by: Po Bronson Po Bronson has an agenda: to uncover for the reader, through the experiences of the main character in his books, the greedy, duplicitous and self-serving traits of many people who have attained some success in certain businesses, and the effects of all that on those who would also achieve success. He does it very well, indeed. His first book, Bombadiers, was authentic in setting, jargon and detail, as it should have been, having been written by someone who was a bond salesman before he wrote the book. This one feels just as authentic, showing either a good understanding of yet another industry, or an ability to tell a story that is very believable; either way, it works well for the reader. Andy (the naïf) gets thoroughly screwed, finds out about it (and about how prevalent such treatment really is,) and finally achieves a moral, if not a financial, victory, while getting an opportunity to tell his antagonist how he really feels...we don't all get that chance...while testing, stretching friendships and loyalty, losing a weak link along the way, thereby somehow completing his education. The narrative is easy to read and compelling, drawing the reader into the feelings and thoughts of the people involved - both the "good guys" and the "bad guys." Making the story even more captivating is Bronson's skill in painting verbal pictures. In what seems to be an economical use of words, he can describe a place, a person, a thing, in such a way that a reader has no doubt of exactly what the place, person or thing looks like. That's not bad, considering that the person and the thing, at a minimum, do not really exist except in the author's mind, and then in the reader's mind as if he had actually met the person and held the thing. That ability is not found every day. Robert Hockenhull