I wrote a book. The publication date is May 29, 2024 (if you’d rather not deal with Amazon, your bookstore can also order it from the distributor Ingram Spark, or print-on-demand if they have the equipment). You can read it for free here, although it’ll be in serial form. My fond hope is that you’ll find it so compelling that you just buy the book instead of waiting 8 months to see what happens. There will be a chapter each week, 33 in all.
In Chapter 4, Walt plants the idea with Len: “why don’t you move out to California and live in my second home in the mountains? We’ll build a second house for you on the property!”
In this chapter, we switch to Silicon Valley, where Matt Finegold and his wife Miriam are living in Palo Alto. This would seem like an ideal life, but Miriam has Wealth Envy. She wonders why Matt doesn’t join a startup and get rich! After all, her clients at the psychological clinic have all done that.
Reading in serial form has a long and honorable history. My cover artist sent me this “Read Like a Victorian” website. Enjoy.
========== The Next Big Thing ===========
Matt Finegold was a friend of Janet, in his mid thirties. He and his wife Miriam had hired Walt Campbell, her husband now (but not then), to fix up their house, and it turned into the Remodeling Job from Hell. Miriam had wanted to go Full Lawyer over it, but Matt had smoothed things over and paid Walt what they owed. She still hated Walt and harbored a grudge against Matt over that, too. So when Janet and Walt got married in March, 1989, he’d gone to the wedding and she’d invented an excuse to stay home.
Miriam was constantly around rich people at her psychologists’ clinic in Palo Alto. Her patients all seemed to be either rich ladies or their teen-aged kids. The husbands, or ex-husbands, almost never came in. In almost every case, the men were executives in some tech startup that had gone public, or else they were venture capitalists or lawyers.
The director of her clinic, Abigail, was married to one of those rich guys, and they led a life that Miriam would kill for. They hosted fundraisers for the local arts groups; their kids attended Stanford and Yale, they went to Ashland for the theater festival every year, and their house was so tastefully decorated it had been in Architectural Digest. Her kitchen had a Subzero refrigerator, a Viking professional range, and an island in the middle with a granite countertop and a wine cooler built in.
Abigail and Bernard, her husband, were fixtures in the Palo Alto social scene. When their kids were in high school, they were leaders of the parents’ groups, running silent auctions for stuff the local artists produced, or having a charity ball that was an imitation of San Francisco’s Black and White Ball. Palo Alto public schools were some of the best in the nation and they were a big reason why up-and-coming Silicon Valley executives wanted to live there, but the parents were always being asked to give even more.
Bernard sat on the board of TheatreWorks, where his main job was raising money, and he was very good at that. Abigail trailed along behind him, sweeping up the wives as new clients for her clinic, and it seemed like at least half of them wanted her services.
Abigail talked to everyone and Bernard, as a venture capitalist, even knew the people who were not in the news yet, so she was current on all the gossip. Miriam checked in with her regularly about Valley stocks, and Abigail’s verdict on 3Com was not good. Their stock was going nowhere, they were dependent on selling Ethernet adapters which would eventually be built into the computer, and Matt really ought to jump to some startup if they wanted to get rich. Miriam wanted that very much.
Matt listened to her telling him this, patiently at first. Lately, she’d been getting more insistent. Matt’s problem was, he just didn’t know what the next big thing was, as he kept explaining. The big boom in PC’s of the early 80’s was over. Steve Jobs had left Apple and it was floundering without him. The really smart guys (or at least they saw themselves that way), were telling the press that handheld computers, where you used a pen instead of a keyboard and mouse, were the wave of the future. Some of the original Macintosh team had formed a company pretentiously called General Magic, which was supposedly going to own this market. Matt didn’t even bother applying, since he knew they wouldn’t hire him.
But in late 1989 Abigail heard of a new entrant in this Next Big Thing sweepstakes, and told Miriam about it! One night she said to Matt,
“Have you ever heard of GO Corp? Some of my colleagues were talking about it.”
Matt had, of course.
“Sure. Some kind of pen thing, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it sounds pretty interesting! You can carry the thing around in your hand, and it recognizes your handwriting.”
“Supposedly. That’s a pretty hard problem. Why, what did you hear?”
“Well, just that they have a lot of venture capital. One of the other psychologists knows a guy who works there. Could be the next big thing!”
Matt looked weary. “Right. Next big thing,” and ostentatiously picked up the Mercury-News.
Miriam decided to wait until later to pursue this further. As they were watching the ten o’clock news, she said,
“So this GO thing: would it be worth getting an interview there and checking them out?”
“I don’t actually know anyone there. They haven’t been around that long.”
“You can’t just send in your resume?”
Matt looked alarmed at that idea. “Send in a resume, cold? That’s what losers do.”
She looked puzzled. “Why? How else do you get an interview? That’s what I did at the clinic.”
“Different world here, Miriam. In high tech your headhunter calls them for you. Or you call someone there you know. Or if you’re really hot shit, they call you.”
“And you don’t have a headhunter? Aren’t those the people who call you all the time?”
“More losers. Bottom feeders. Deal with one of those and everyone thinks you’re a loser.”
Miriam felt like there was some kind of status hierarchy here, and while she’d thought she understood it, maybe she was wrong. She didn’t want to irritate Matt any further right now. A little more research was clearly called for.
Abigail told her on Monday that GO was a hot startup, and Matt definitely should get in early. Mitch Kapor, who had been largely responsible for Lotus 1-2-3, was a buddy of Jerry Kaplan, the founder. Most importantly, John Doerr, of Kleiner, Perkins, the Valley’s most prestigious venture capital firm, was behind it! How could you go wrong? This was the VC firm that had backed Lotus, Tandem, Compaq, and Sun. Having them behind you was like having God on your side.
GO was a leader in something that was certain to be as big as personal computers: “pen computing.” Abigail told her about Grid, a startup from the early 80s that made a laptop long before anyone else, and that thing used a pen. It was so cool because you didn’t have to learn to type! GO was going to go further than Grid and let you write in cursive, just like you’d write a note to someone, and the computer would recognize your handwriting. There were even rumors that Microsoft was interested in pen computing, and once Bill Gates got into something, all the smart money got out. So you had to be quick about exploiting it. Time was of the essence.
Miriam had never heard of Kleiner Perkins, but she was soon name-dropping it with almost everyone she talked to. She was gratified to find they all recognized the name immediately. She just had to get Matt into GO while there was still some founder’s stock left (another Valley term she’d picked up).
But how? Matt had already poured cold water on the idea. Miriam told Abigail what he’d said, and she just laughed. Kim Burdette was the leading headhunter in the Valley, and she was connected to all the startups. Surely Kim could get Matt an interview.
Miriam was excited. Might she, for once, know more than Matt about how high tech really worked? She’d find out tonight.
At dinner, she said, “So, have you ever talked to Kim Burdette?”
Matt looked surprised. “The headhunter? No. How do you know about her?”
She pointed to her temple.
“Oh, I know a lot of things. The Valley’s a small place, you know.”
He chuckled, and waited for her to say more.
“Abigail was telling me Kim’s the top headhunter in the Valley. She knows all the startups!”
“Does she now?”
She caught the mocking tone in his voice. Now it was her turn to let him speak.
Matt finally asked, “So was there a reason you brought this up?”
“Well, remember last week you said you didn’t know anyone at GO Corp?” He nodded.
“But the proper Silicon Valley thing was to have your headhunter call the company for you?”
Now it was clear. “Ah. So you want me to have Kim get me into GO? I’m slow here, sorry.”
She just pointed to her temple again.
“Sorry, honey. I’m just not interested in leaving 3Com, right when I’m on the brink of a major promotion.” His tone was final.
Miriam went in the kitchen for some imaginary chore to hide her mood.
* * *
At work the next day, Matt asked his friend Dan, “So have you ever used Kim Burdette for anything?”
Dan laughed. “Amazingly, no. She’s sent me on a zillion interviews, but both my jobs since Xerox, I got without her! Someday, maybe… why? Did you talk to her?”
“No, not yet. Miriam is pushing me to call her.”
“Really? Why?”
“She’s got this idea that I have to join a startup and make us rich. So we can move to Portola Valley, I guess.”
Dan pondered that. He knew so many people from Xerox who had already made it, and here he was still struggling. Personal computers had exploded, networking was exploding, so where was his pile of money? He sighed.
“So, you’re going to call Kim? I really like her, actually. Not a slimebag headhunter at all. You can see why everyone in the Valley loves her.”
Matt felt encouraged. He called and left Kim a message. He wouldn’t tell Miriam about it.
* * *
Kim already knew all about Matt, of course. Kim knew everything. She had a hand-drawn org chart for 3Com, like she did for all the high-tech companies.
He met with Kim for lunch, and she was every bit as engaging as Dan had said. They had a long getting-acquainted session, where she seemed to be finding out about him indirectly, by asking about other people and companies, rather than direct questions. She was not the “I know more than you and I’m not telling” sort of power person, either. Lots of little gossip items seemed to come out randomly, and Kim seemed as amused by retelling them as Matt was.
Finally, they got around to GO Corp. She hadn’t actually placed anyone there yet, but she said she’d call for him. She didn’t know much about them; just that they seemed to be well-connected with the venture capital world. She mentioned a few other startups she was working with but didn’t think any of those were right for him.
Matt came back and told Dan he was on the money about Kim. She might not find him a job, but you didn’t get the feeling you had to wash your hands after meeting her, at least.
They had another chat about GO. Pen-based computers: it did have a superficial appeal to it. You can’t use a keyboard or mouse on a handheld device, obviously. But really — was this a revolution or just another input device to add onto Windows or Mac?
It seemed like all these people who had missed the PC revolution were just desperate to jump on something and call it a revolution. Every week, PC Week had a story like that. At the same time, there were people who really had built a big new thing back in the day, and now they were bored with just selling and improving it. They wanted to relive their youths and do it again! It was kinda sad, actually, like Jake and Elwood in The Blues Brothers movie getting the band back together again.
The Macintosh people were especially that way. Their names were worshiped like they were Mick Jagger or Paul McCartney or something. Any day now, those guys (they were mainly guys, but there were a few women as well) would issue a press release that they were going to create the next big thing, and everybody better just stand back! After all, they did it once. How could they miss?
Dan was cynical about all this. Matt was too, but he seemed more willing to believe the hype. Dan thought it was because of his wife.
* * *
Miriam had been busy. Every night it seemed like she had some new bit of wisdom on GO to impart.
GO was the new, hot thing, and this was Matt and Miriam’s chance for big money. It seemed like everyone else had already cashed in on the PC revolution, and 3Com was not going to do it for them. They’d be lucky if their stock bought them a new car; forget about the house in Portola Valley. Time was wasting.
GO had a deal with IBM; GO was working with Microsoft; pen computing was going to be as big as personal computers were. It went on and on. She lectured him about how, if you carried the computer in your hands, you couldn’t use a mouse or a keyboard, and your fingers were too big anyway. The pen had to be the key.
This didn’t particularly impress Matt, since he was always hearing stuff like this. Styluses had been around forever. Everybody thought they had the next big thing. He had his interview in another week, so he figured there was nothing more to say until that happened.
Miriam was undeterred. She told him about all the top-drawer talent GO had managed to attract. Abigail had told her that Robert Carr, the brains behind dBase; Mitch Kapor, from Lotus; and of course, John Doerr from Kleiner Perkins were all behind it. Miriam had never heard of any of those people before, but the way Abigail said their names, she felt like she was hearing about an upcoming blockbuster with Meryl Streep, Sylvester Stallone, and Robert De Niro; a guaranteed hit!
=========================================
There! That wasn’t so bad, was it? There’s a companion “Notes” doc where I detail what really happened back then, who helped me with it, and answer any other questions you might have.
Yes, there’s no free lunch: you can read this for free, but going deeper into the history will cost you a modest $5 a month. The Paid section will also include all the chapters, whereas they age out of the Free section after a few months. If you like what you read, buy the book.
There will usually be a Notes post on each chapter, where you read the real story if there is one.