Amazon.com "Until a few years ago," notes journalist-consultant Udayan Gupta, "venture capitalists were hardly on anyone's radar screen." That's not the case these days, as financiers who used to work behind the scenes now regularly set markets afire with their public support of high-profile technology and Internet stocks. In Done Deals, Gupta allows 35 of the brightest stars in what has become a $30-billion-a-year business to tell their own stories in their own words. We get to see exactly what they were thinking when they backed such endeavors as Intel, eBay, Excite, Genentech, and 3Com. Gupta's intention is to demonstrate how the industry has changed over the past half-century and how it differs today among its various forms. He achieves this beautifully by dividing the first-person accounts into thematically attuned sections that focus on dealmakers of the future (such as Mitch Kapor of Accel Partners), early pioneers (including the late Benno Schmidt of J.H. Whitney & Co.), West Coast veterans (such as Don Valentine of Sequoia Capital), past and present East Coast practitioners (like Charles Waite of Greylock Management), and visionaries (including John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers). Some of the stories are more detailed than others, but taken together, they provide a well-rounded view that will interest anyone who must deal with this often intertwined yet still individual world. --Howard Rothman From The Industry Standard There was a time in the 1980s when the dreams of business-school graduates from the elite Ivy League centered on Wall Street. Bankers and traders were superstars, the larger-than-life protagonists of hit movies such as Wall Street and bestselling books such as Liar's Poker. Few wept, though, when the market crashed in the early autumn of 1987 and the denizens of Wall Street became national scapegoats for the excesses of the Reagan era. The center of wealth creation was already sliding westward, toward Silicon Valley. As the computer spawned the hardware industry, the software industry, the networking industry and finally the Internet, the financiers of that hypergrowth - the venture capitalists - became the new rock stars. Business-school graduates refocused accordingly. What has not changed is the desire to hear the story of wealth over and over again. The latest evidence: Done Deals, a collection of "how I did it" essays from 32 of the biggest stars in the venture capital firmament, edited by Biztrail.com founder Udayan Gupta. Where the rock-star world tends toward tales of success, failure and redemption, the venture capitalists featured here highlight only the success. Absent are embarrassing stories of portfolio companies failing miserably or times in which the VC might have put his (save for Ann Winblad of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, the VCs here are all men) interests above his investments. Instead, the book provides a heavy dose of what's already saturating the almost universally laudatory business press: platitudes on "helping the entrepreneur" and "building companies for the long haul." Which is to be expected. With the amount of cash flowing into venture firms these days, little more separates one quality firm from another than the perception of the press. Bob Kagle of Benchmark Capital says as much about his investments, but the same could be said of Benchmark itself: "What it means to be the first well-executed play is not just to execute the business, but to communicate the early success of the business in an effective way and broad way, so as to feed that success." To be fair, VCs don't have an easy job. There are complexities and conflicts everywhere, and the book's main strength is in illustrating how they navigate those conflicts. Accel Partners' James Breyer, for example, tells how he balances having Microsoft as an investor in his firm's fund - which obviously requires "that there are positive relationships that come out of the overall relationship with Microsoft" - and assuring the success of RealNetworks, a company in which he is heavily invested and that competes directly with Microsoft in the streaming-media market. Unfortunately, there are not enough of those kind of concrete examples in the book for most people to learn anything new about what makes a VC tick. The authors don't put the reader in the board rooms and corner offices; they focus instead on how they got into the business in the first place. That may be a good thing for the hopeful fans about to graduate from business school, but it's not much help for those who already are playing in the band. edited by Udayan Gupta From Booklist Gupta, a small-business development and strategy consultant and freelance business journalist, examines the venture capital industry through interviews of 35 of its major players. He looks at the early venture capitalists and contrasts them with today's notable players. He also explains the historical distinction between the East Coast group and the West Coast, Silicon Valley practitioners, with the former emphasizing financial engineering to gain tax benefits and financial returns, whereas those in the West take a chance on a fledgling technology and nurture the scientist. However, this distinction has blurred as the industry rapidly grows. Interviews include representatives of the newest incarnation of venture capitalists, famous names from both the East and West Coasts, and future visionaries. This is an interesting chronicle of an industry that 20 years ago invested $1 billion in portfolio companies and raised less than $700 million, and in 2000 is projected to both invest and raise new funds in excess of $30 billion. Mary WhaleyCopyright ? American Library Association. All rights reserved Business 2.0, September, 12, 2000 "Done Deals is compelling reading." Book Description FLAPCOPY The Inside Story of the Venture Capital World as Told by the Industry's Elite Players Arguably today's hottest industry, venture capital is a dynamic engine of wealth creation that has contributed both to America's soaring economy and to its undisputed technological dominance. Yet, in spite of the significant media attention the venture capital world has attracted, an air of mystery still surrounds the industry and its kingmakers. In Done Deals, journalist Udayan Gupta provides a revealing history of this phenomenal industry as told through first-person accounts of its most influential players. Organized into five parts, the book chronicles the industry's humble beginnings and extraordinary present, highlights the key differences between West Coast and East Coast firms, and presents a vision of the future as told by industry veterans. Throughout, the voices of more than thirty leading venture capitalists-from early pioneers such as Eugene Kleiner and Arthur Rock to current top players like Geoff Yang and John Doerr-reveal insights gleaned from their personal experiences in successful deal making. From how today's hottest deals-like Yahoo! and Amazon.com-got done, to what VCs look for in a business proposal, to how they set up partnerships and hand select top management teams, the collective wisdom of this elite group becomes an invaluable primer on exactly what it takes to succeed in this high-stakes world. Download Description In Done Deals, journalist Udayan Gupta provides a revealing history of the venture capital industry as told through first-person accounts of its most influential players. Organized into five parts, the book chronicles the industry's humble beginnings and extraordinary rise, highlights the key differences between West Coast and East Coast firms, and presents a vision of the future as told by industry veterans. Throughout, the voices of more than thirty leading venture capitalists--from early pioneers such as Eugene Kleiner and Arthur Rock to current top players like Geoff Yang and John Doerr--reveal insights gleaned from their personal experiences in successful deal making. From how today's hottest deals--like Yahoo! and Amazon.com--got done, to what VCs look for in a business proposal, to how they set up partnerships and hand-select top management teams, the collective wisdom of this elite group becomes an invaluable primer on exactly what it takes to succeed in this high-stakes world. --This text refers to the Digital edition. About the Author Udayan Gupta is the founder of biztrail.com, a multimedia news and information publisher. A small-business development and strategy consultant and a freelance business journalist, he is a Walter Bagehot Fellow in Business & Economics Journalism. He served as a Senior Special Writer for the Wall Street Journal for over a decade.

(Source: Amazon.com)