Bronson wrote the definitive history of how Silicon Valley came to be. He's written a bunch of other stuff that is pretty good too.
>>The Nudist on the Late Shift came out at the height of the great social experiment - dot com fever, summer of 1999. Amazingly, it still stands the test of time, being the definitive portrait of that crazy place and time in our modern history, when all the rules were rewritten. My classic piece is the first chapter, The Newcomers, which was inspired by the works of Joan Didion, Upton Sinclair, and John Steinbeck, who chronicled other great migrations to California. From 1996 to 2000, almost 400,000 young people moved to the Bay Area from elsewhere to seek their fortune and fate in the internet industry was very lucky to learn from my publishers.
"Bronson writes vividly and sympathetically of these people. He reports, but does not judge. The result is the finest evocation of the Valley so far. Long after computing has become a sunset industry and the industrial action has moved to some other valley, grizzled veterans will take down this book and tell their grandchildren 'This, kids, is what it was really like." - The Times
The Nudist on the Late Shift was named one of the best nonfiction books of the year by the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and Seattle Times.
pobronson.com
One character he writes about walked into the US from Canada with a duffel bag full of marijuana. With the proceeds from selling off the stuff he started a company, took it public and is now a jillionaire. He says it's a name and a company we'd all recognize, but he ain't tellin. <g> |
