eBoys: The True Story of the Six Tall Men Who Backed eBay, Webvan and Other Billion-dollar Start-ups [Paperback]

Most people who want to found a new business dream about getting venture capital en route to going public. At least a third of these people who approach venture capital firms do not have any contacts to get them a hearing at venture capital firms. Even those who do will find the odds are long. Perhaps one deal in 100 from connected people will be funded by a particular venture capital firm.

Almost all entrepreneurs I know think that venture capitalists get paid too much, and that they get in the way rather than being a help.

This book will help you draw your own conclusions, as well as give you some ideas about what to look for if you do decide to go for venture capital.

Many will be astonished to see that funded ideas often come with no workable CEO in place. The venture capitalist will often play a key role in doing the recruiting of the CEO and other key personnel.

Also, others will be amazed to find out how important little things are to keeping deals together or tearing them apart -- usually the trust or lack of trust in those involved on all sides.

For years, I have worked with executives whose firms were orginally funded by venture capitalists. I also have friends who are venture capitalists. Everything in the book rang true to me.

The only thing that would have made the book bettter would have been equal access to the thinking of the people in the start-ups. We get their view through the VCs. Because of the relationships involved, that's hard to accomplish because there's a need to stay friendly that is harmful to candor.

Although the book will be invaluable to entrepreneurs, it was not designed for that purpose. It really is more of a business history of one firm over a two year period of time, highlighting some of its most successful (eBay and Webvan) and unsuccessful (a venture with Toys R Us that went nowhere) relationships. You'll have to draw your own lessons along the way. So it's like reading a mystery novel. Keep your eyes open for the clues, and draw your own conclusions.

People thinking about a career in venture capital will also find the book to be valuable. The demands and strains are large, and so are the rewards when it all works. Keep in mind that success in venture capital goes in cycles. My friends tell me that dot com investments have been the most successful class of investing ever for VCs. Some firms report making money 90 percent of the time in the last 5 years. It won't usually be that easy. Se remember that you are reading about the good times when you go through this book.

Buy it, read it, and apply its lessons to make your own success greater! You're much more likely to create an irresistible growth enterprise when you do.

I encourage you to always be building your relationships with outstanding people. You can learn from them, and often they will become important allies in your entrepreurial journey!

The eBay story was just one of many such incidents to be witnessed by Stross in his two-year tenure as 'writer in residence' at Benchmark's Menlo Park offices. Also chronicled are the early days of Webvan, the Internet grocery firm founded by book millionaire Louis Borders, who has convinced the VC community (including Benchmark) to part with extortionate amounts of money to build his vision of a computerised grocery distribution network. Added to that are the inside stories of landmark companies such as Priceline.com, which achieved the highest first-day valuation ever by an Internet company on flotation, and Scient, the hugely successful e-services firm.

There are moments where readers will marvel at just how far Stross has penetrated into the machinations of venture capitalists and the companies in which they invest. Sadly, however, this same intimacy is also the book's ultimate undoing. The freedom that Stross was given to participate in the lives of the Benchmark partners is, from a journalistic viewpoint, unparalleled. But the experience has clearly left Stross feeling indebted to his benefactors.

Stross seems so enamoured of his subjects, and so caught up by the bravado of their adventures, that he fails almost entirely to step outside of the spectacle and tell the reader what is really going on. Along with endless talk about 'Big Hitters', Stross has gone all out to persuade his readers that 'the Benchmark boys' are all-American heroes who have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and should be revered for their altruism and dedication to duty.

"Benchmark's mahogany-and-art appointed office on Sand Hill Road was an unlikely destination for a working-class student from a single-parent family in Flint, Michigan," he muses about Benchmark partner David Beirne. As for Bob Kagle, already a multi-millionaire venture capitalist before joining Benchmark, he suggests "material success was a garment he simply refused to wear".

For readers who can stomach such partisan viewpoints, eBoys remains a potentially enlightening read. And for those who simply wish to marvel at the sheer scale of the wealth that technology venture investing has created, then eBoys is unlikely to disappoint.