Rating: 
Summary: Tales of Lust, Greed, and Innovation in the Valley
Review: This book's first chapter at one point refers back to the "Gold Rush fever" that hit San Francisco in the late 1840s. It's a good corollary to those seemingly "seeking gold/riches" in today's Silicon Valley.What struck me most about the book were the stories of excess and power among the Valley's richest executives. People like Larry Ellison, Jim Barksdale & Jim Clark, and Steve Jobs, for example. And yes Bill Gates, even if he is technically about 800 miles to the north. Speaking of Gates, the author makes what I found to be an interesting observation: That the Justice Department's "wish" to divy up Microsoft into two or more companies would not create more competition. His feeling is that any company complaining about Microsoft's so-called "monopoly" would do better to study how Microsoft got to be where they are and why. The rationale being that the Valley tends to "eat its young," and that it might be easier to stop this "Godzilla" by beating it at its own game. Among the other stories told here? Stories about the people and companies that got left "behind." Companies like Shockley Semiconductor, academic institutions like the University of Illinois and their original browser, and even people like the tragic figure, Gary Kildal. The stories in this book most likely have been told elsewhere judging by other reviews I've seen. Even so, they are told in entertaining fashion in this book.
Rating: 
Summary: What an amazing book!
Review: Wow. What an amazing book. Not many books live up to my expectations, but this one surpassed it. David Kaplan manages to walk readers through the entire history of Silicon Valley, from orchards, to Apple, to Fairchild, to Intel, to Yahoo! and beyond, explaining every step of the way how each company is interrelated and the geneology of the people and the funding. There are antedotal stories along the way to keep you interested. He tells of the greed, and the lavish lifestyles. We get behind-the-scenes details of the deals that created the companies we all take for granted - Netscape, Microsoft, Yahoo, Intel, Apple, etc. This book is much more than merely the stories of those on the back cover (Yang, Doerr, Andreessen, Gates, Clark, Jobs): It is a detailed, well planned, well executed history of Silicon Valley. Anyone wanting to know the history of the valley or the history of the high tech companies in the valley need look no further than this book. It amazes me that Kaplan was able to pack so much fascinating information into just over 300 pages.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Description of Silicon Valley
Review: "The Silicon Boys and Their Valley of Dreams" is a well written description of Silicon Valley at it's peak. It describes the culture of the valley during the nineties. It is an interesting peek into the a world of driven software developers and venture capitalists and everyone else in their galaxies. It focuses on companies and names we've all heard of: Apple, Oracle, Netscape, Microsoft, Intel, and many more. For anyone in the technology industry, this book is a good window onto the 90s - pre dotcom mania.
Rating:
Summary: Tales of Lust, Greed, and Innovation in the Valley
Review: This book's first chapter at one point refers back to the "Gold Rush fever" that hit San Francisco in the late 1840s. It's a good corollary to those seemingly "seeking gold/riches" in today's Silicon Valley. What struck me most about the book were the stories of excess and power among the Valley's richest executives. People like Larry Ellison, Jim Barksdale & Jim Clark, and Steve Jobs, for example. And yes Bill Gates, even if he is technically about 800 miles to the north. Speaking of Gates, the author makes what I found to be an interesting observation: That the Justice Department's "wish" to divy up Microsoft into two or more companies would not create more competition. His feeling is that any company complaining about Microsoft's so-called "monopoly" would do better to study how Microsoft got to be where they are and why. The rationale being that the Valley tends to "eat its young," and that it might be easier to stop this "Godzilla" by beating it at its own game. Among the other stories told here? Stories about the people and companies that got left "behind." Companies like Shockley Semiconductor, academic institutions like the University of Illinois and their original browser, and even people like the tragic figure, Gary Kildal. The stories in this book most likely have been told elsewhere judging by other reviews I've seen. Even so, they are told in entertaining fashion in this book.
Rating:
Summary: Good Description of Silicon Valley
Review: "The Silicon Boys and Their Valley of Dreams" is a well written description of Silicon Valley at it's peak. It describes the culture of the valley during the nineties. It is an interesting peek into the a world of driven software developers and venture capitalists and everyone else in their galaxies. It focuses on companies and names we've all heard of: Apple, Oracle, Netscape, Microsoft, Intel, and many more. For anyone in the technology industry, this book is a good window onto the 90s - pre dotcom mania.
Rating:
Summary: Solid Silicon Story
Review: This was one of the best Silly Valley stories I've read yet. Kaplan does a very good job offering a historical and chronological storyline that educates the reader while holding interest. Hence an educational book that also happens to be very unique and authentic.
Rating:
Summary: Silicon Boys Book Review
Review: The non-fiction book The Silicon Boys and Their Valley of Dreams is written by David A. Kaplan. It is about how Silicon Valley started and why it is important to be near all the silicon in California. Also it explains who invented and invents the processors and software. It talks about Intel, then Apple and Microsoft, after that Oracle, then Kleiner Perkins, Mozilla, Microsoft, and finally Yahoo. David A. Kaplan used many correct facts and you can see who his sources are in the back of the book. It is organized chronologically starting at the early '70s when "The Traitorous Eight" first started developing processors. It concludes in 1999 when Microsoft was developing Internet Explorer and Yahoo was popular. Each chapter talks about a company or person or both. I think it was a very good book. It told me a lot about the computer industry and the people behind it. If you don't care much about computers you shouldn't read this book but if you even have a slight interest, you'd like this book. The author did a very good job explaning the aspects of the computer industry, so even if you don't know much about computers you can understand this book.
Rating:
Summary: Fun romp
Review: Great read on the culture of the Silicon Valley and how tycoons like Jobs, Yang, Ellison, Andreesen, and Clark built their companies. Learn about how the "biggest legal creation of wealth in history" all happened. Kaplan does an excellent job writing in a witty biting way.
Rating:
Summary: The History Textbook for the Valley
Review: Considering what influence Silicon Valley has had on the U.S. and the world's economy, it is amazing how few know the history behind its growth and those who contributed. Mr. Kaplan's book attempts to methodically parses through the Valley's roots and its bloom, and he does so with quite a bit of editorial bite. Mr. Kaplan's prose is easy to follow as well as quite generous with its descriptions of technological feats, making the book enjoyable for the layman who may not understand the technology to the engineer who may like to read an overview of the technology and how they all developed and relied on each other. I gave the book 4 stars as opposed to 5 because even though Mr. Kaplan's editorial take on some events were quite amusing, the bias ostracizes his attempt to clearly follow the Valley's growth, and instead, throws increasingly more doubt towards his ability to accurately comprehend the true importance and implications from such events. This book is a good reference for how things developed in the Valley, but it is from an outsider's view with respect to the contributions of a few public characters dominating the media versus the drive and ambition of all the engineers who developed the technology itself.
Rating: 
Summary: Alternating boring and silly
Review: I really hate to not finish books, but after 200 pages of this one I put it in the Goodwill pile. There is way too much about the excesses of the rich and the personalities of venture capitalists and way too little about the history of the technology. I think the paragraph that finally made me stop reading was the one about how Marc Andreesen and his date enjoyed a particular movie, but the VC and his wife didn't. The author must have been paid by the column inch for this drivel.
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