Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0 (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: news feed, search ads, funding round, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Six Apart (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“No other recent chronicle delivers such intimate, behind- the scenes glimpses into Silicon Valley start-up life.”
—Wired --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Description

The captivating story of the mavericks who emerged from the dotcom rubble to found the multibillion-dollar companies taking the Web into the twenty-first century

Everyone has heard the story of the Internet Bubble. Beginning with Netscape’s IPO in 1996, billions flowed into Internet startups, and companies with no revenues and shaky business plans earned sky-high valuations on Wall Street. It was the era of paper millionaires, $800 office chairs, and Super Bowl ads for dotcoms. Then in 2000 the Bubble burst, with the NASDAQ losing 75 percent of its value and hundreds of companies closing up shop. It was all written off to “irrational exuberance,” and everyone moved on.

Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good is the story of the entrepreneurs who learned their lesson from the bust and in recent years have created groundbreaking new Web companies. The second iteration of the dotcoms—dubbed Web 2.0—is all about bringing people together. Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace unite friends online; YouTube lets anyone posts videos for the world to see; Digg.com allows Internet users to vote on the most relevant news of the day; Six Apart sells software that enables bloggers to post their viewpoints online; and Slide helps people customize their virtual selves.

Business reporter Sarah Lacy brings to light the entire Web 2.0 scene: the wide-eyed but wary entrepreneurs, the hated venture capitalists, the bloggers fueling the hype, the programmers coding through the night, the twenty-something millionaires, and the Internet “fan boys” eager for all the promises to come true.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Gotham (May 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592403824
• ISBN-13: 978-1592403820
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #375,227 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Just horribly written, September 10, 2008

By	Z. Brock - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The anecdotes in this book are really great, but pretty much everything else is just plain awful. The writing, thesis and "evidence" are all horrible.
I won't even go into the second two, but check out this gem from page 4: "Another contender was Six Apart, founded in 2002 by then twenty-four-year-olds Ben and Mena Trott in 2004." Or this one from page 208 "Peter's two protoges were going to become closer allies or rivals". Allies? Rivals? Maybe both! Include Lacy's obnoxious habits of name dropping people and super exclusive parties she attended, referring to Mark Zuckerburg constantly as "Zuck" and finishing paragraphs with sentence fragments and you end up with a really painful book to read.

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars nauseating in parts, informative in others, December 19, 2008

By	Lloyd Doppler "technologist. attorney. writer... (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This is a quick and informative read for anyone interested in the new Valley/tech boom. Unfortunately, Sarah comes off as having drunk too much Web 2.0 kool-aid and spends a little too much time gushing about Facebook, which, if she and Zuckerberg are right, will become for the Web what AOL was ten years ago: a walled garden. Also, in the current economic climate, it might sound a little bullish, especially on companies like Slide who seem to have no future. Finally, for a book that only the digerati and other tech-savvy folks will read, it explains some of the new technologies using oversimplified and inapt metaphors.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Could have been more..., August 17, 2008

By	D. Berry "amazon junkie" (Trailerpark USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

It was "okay". It mostly talked about Paypal, Facebook, Digg and alittle about Blogger > Twitter. Some stuff were pretty informative, but it was (insert nice word for fluff here) overall. I already know alot about PP and FB (who doesn't?) but I did not know that the founder of Blogger sold to Google for $10 million in stocks and cashed out for around $50 million. I also did not know that the Blogger Founder started Twitter. Makes sense I suppose. Is it worth reading? Maybe if you're not from Silicon Valley or don't know much about Web 2.0.

Some things were alittle shady - how Zuck, 20, met an important person before he moved to the Valley. How did he meet this tech person who didn't go to Harvard? There are some gaps.

Lacy seems an admirable person, but given her lack of credibility over her article on Kevin Rose in Business Week last year and her disastrous interview w/Zuck at SXSW doesn't make this a sound book based on true facts, but based on assumptions and rumors. Most of this stuff could probably be found on Wikipedia if you look up the companies and founders. Save the money or wait till I donate this book at the local library near you.