Rating: 
Summary: Height matters!
Review: Once the reader realizes that the author has skimped on the hard work due diligence that would not play out well in a book, Eboys rocks!The access and intimate details make this a treasure. The storytelling and the success stories make it fun. For those of us who create companies or invest in them Eboys provides the valuable reminder that it is not always what but sometime when. The Eboys timing is perfect.
Rating: 
Summary: Shameful -- Stross is a shill
Review: With the economic success in the Valley, now everybody wants a piece of the action, including journalists. Sadly, this book will probably follow on Po Bronson's and Jerry Kaplan's as a script for a Hollywood movie. I bought this book because, one, I've been operating as an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley for some time, and, two, I enjoyed Randall Stross's book on Steve Jobs and Next. That book, "The Next Big Thing", exhibited balanced, accurate journalism. Stross has lost my respect with Eboys, however. Sorry, but VC firms don't operate in this compassionate, humane way, and Benchmark is no exception. The book's message that these guys are motivated by service to the entrepreneur is laughable. The venture business is all about return on investment, and these guys are among the most tough-minded and ruthless in the Valley. To not recognize that most fundamental reality, Stross has either lost his mind or sold out.
Rating:
Summary: Jamis MacNiven Owner of Buck's of Woodside
Review: What eboys reveals is that investing in the new marketplace takes pluck, luck and brains. These guys scour the countryside for the very best talent and combine it with the best bet as to what the pubic will want in an uncharted future. Some have say its ego driven, money driven and it is. Great! Whatever gets the job done is fine with me. The essential fact is that the enterprise of venture capital investing quickly moves beyond money and gamesmanship into a realm almost surreal in its effect on all our lives. What the book conveyed to me was how aware they are at Benchmark as to how big an effect they are having and are, in fact, a bit humbled by it. Many of the firms established by Benchmark and the other venture firms will be the bedrock of the new millenium. Almost as much fun as the book are the critical comments by the readers.
Rating: 
Summary: Distorted
Review: eBoys reads like a Gospel tract for Benchmark Capital. I say this as someone who knows and likes "the boys" at Benchmark and can attest that their investment returns are genuinely top-tier. But unfortunately the author presents the Benchmark perspective to a fault, almost as if he's writing from inside some kind of reality distortion field. For starters, there is a major distortion in the Introduction about one of Benchmark's main competitors in the venture capital business, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. All other partners at this firm outside of John Doerr are disparaged as "not-Doerr," as if Doerr were the only competent venture capitalist at the firm that entrepreneurs want to work with and the rest of the partners are simply a weak supporting cast. This disparagement is anecdotally directed at KPCB partner Will Hearst in particular. I suppose this is done for dramatic effect, but it is way off. In recent years Will Hearst has been one of the top-performing partners at the firm, in some funds surpassing John Doerr. Meanwhile anyone who has been paying attention to the venture business in the least bit in recent years should know that KPCB partner Vinod Khosla, who was a cofounder of Sun Microsystems and is as much an entrepreneur as a venture capitalist, has been consistently hitting the ball out of the park, most recently with such multi-billion deals as Cerent and Siara. Not bad for a "not-Doerr" I would say. Another major distortion is the author's account of Benchmark's falling out with Stanford University. The University is at the heart of the Silicon Valley boom in producing engineering and business talent for the industry as well as funding it, but it is cast as some kind of conspirator that tried to thwart Benchmark's efforts to launch its first fund. Did the author even attempt to get Stanford's side of the story or those of the other limited partners who were supposedly part of this X-files type conspiracy? Some "off-the-record" perspective, at the least, might have been helpful in balancing the two sides of the story. I think at this point the author is just being plain lazy and makes one wonder what his terms were for being granted access to Benchmark's inner sanctum. After these distortions it becomes difficult to trust the book on other matters, for example the account the author gives about Jerry Kaplan and Onsale relative to the rise of eBay. How fair is it? It's hard to know. All and all it's a disappointing book. I didn't learn a thing. I expected more since I benefited from the author's previous book on Microsoft. This is too bad, because eBoys could have been an excellent book had it been better researched and more balanced.
Rating: 
Summary: Highly motivating
Review: As someone between semesters in a top MBA program, spending my summer in a VC, I was completely captivated by this story from beginning to end. A story such as this makes me wish I had taken a different path directly after undergrad and gone straight to Silicon Valley rather than laboring for years in a "resume builder". Fortunately for Mr. Stross, he happened to be at the right firm at the right time. No one could have possibly imagined the deals he was witness to. This true-to-life account is an accurate depiction of what really goes on at top VC's and is as informative as it is entertaining. For those who did not like the book, I would suggest they were perhaps in search of more technicals and have turned their backs on what amounts to a fine history lesson.
Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly Enjoyable
Review: I really enjoyed (and you will too), this documentary of the inside workings of a well known Silicon Valley venture capital company. Like many others, I had always associated funding as the sole value a VC firm brings to a startup. However, this book enlightend me as to the other core values brought to the table (staffing, business structure, management, etc.). The book is written in strong and very engaging narrative, I spent a few days of my vacation at a sunny resort...under a shade umbrella reading this book (the water slide had to wait !). The eBay story alone was facinating, as was the previous histories of each of the founders...and there was more ! I recommend this book to anyone who understands the silicon valley "environment", also to those having a sincere wish to do so.
Rating:
Summary: An incredible book
Review: This was the best inside account I have read on the business of venture capital. Going inside some of the biggest internet deals was extremely intriguing. The reader comes away with the "process" that entrepreneurs go through, from the original idea phase thru actual implementation. You quickly discover that there is no scientific process-in fact, many of these huge deals came off as seat of the pants brainstorming. The reader should come to the realization that the main difference between those that make it big and those that only dream is that the "players" take action. Some reviewers seemed to hold the author responsible for the rather unscientific methods of the venture capitalists and the entrepreneurs they funded but it is clear that he reported exactly what he saw. If you want the inside story on how many internet legend companies were created, then this is the book. It captures the essence of what will go down in history as an incredibly crazy period in American business history.
Rating:
Summary: How (not) to raise another fund!
Review: Nothing like a credulous and uninformed writer, or is it the Benchmark guys themselves? Are they possibly as inarticulate, unanalytical and grossly negligent in due diligence (Tri-Strata) as portrayed? Is Beirne really a shill (recruiting by misrepresentation)? Had they not gotten so lucky (eBay) I'd don't know how they'd raise another fund. Read it and ask youself: If you had fiduciary responsibility for pension, endowment, trust (or other) money, would you entrust it to these guys? I wouldn't. And so maybe this book is a great public service.
Rating: 
Summary: Insightful ¿Dot-commentary" of Leading VC firm
Review: 'eBoys' chronologically documents 'warts'n'all' several years of leading venture capitalist company Benchmark's decision-making and operations. Benchmark annually sifts through the 1000s of business plans to fund a handful of dot.com startups to IPO, as described in the entertaining well-referenced chapters covering billion-dollar startups like eBay and Webvan, as well as others like: Tristata, Toys-R-Us, Red Hat, Scient, Priceline, ePhysician, newwatch.com, art.com etc... Possible improvements include: portrayal of global context; more statistical evidence/facts about VCs/startups/etc..; significant objective analysis & reflection of events; and formatting to include summaries/lists etc.. (like 'Confessions of a Venture Capitalist' by Quindlen). These would help the reader use the information rather than just be entertained by the storyline. Overall an intelligently, well-written, 'fly-on-the-wall' tale gamely capturing much of the passion, technology and business acumen/judgment exhibited by a likeable & lucky, hard-working company with integrity. More entertaining than useful to most business readers- hence the only average rating.
Rating:
Summary: Captivating!
Review: I started reading it and found myself captivated by the stories of success and achievement. Stories that are TRUE! Read it!
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