Money from Thin Air: The Story of Craig McCaw, the Visionary who Invented the Cell Phone Industry, and His Next Billion-Dollar Idea (Hardcover)

by O. Casey Corr (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
"With cellular telephony... we saw an enormous gap between what was and what should be. I mean, [the fixed phone system] makes absolutely no sense. It is machines dominating human beings. The idea that people went to a small cubicle, a six-by-ten office, and sat there all day at the end of a six-foot cord, was anathema to me" So says Craig McCaw, who staked what once amounted to $3.5 million dollars of long-term debt on the idea that in the not-too-distant future, America would be ready to cut that six-foot-cord... and whose epic risk paid off big in 1994 when AT&T bought for $12.6 billion the nationwide cellular-phone empire McCaw had for the past decade stealthily patched together, leveraged buyout by leveraged buyout.

His story is told here by O. Casey Corr, who covers business and technology for The Seattle Times. Corr starts with the 1969 death of McCaw's broadcasting-tycoon father, whereupon Craig and his superrich Seattle family realize they are actually flat broke. At once risk-loving and shrewd, young Craig starts buying one small cable outfit after another in the Pacific Northwest as the fledgling industry picks up steam through the 1970s. But sensing the real wave of the future is the wireless phone, McCaw seizes on the FCC's mid-1980s decision to jettison its Byzantine application process for wireless regional franchises in favor of a lottery system--a move that transformed wireless speculation from a sleepy insider's game dominated by AT&T into a nationwide feeding frenzy, all at a time when cell phones and their transmission were still wildly expensive and their mass popularity more than a decade away. Leveraging one high-risk purchase against the next, eventually with the help of junk-bond king Michael Milken, McCaw gobbles up most of the infant markets. But he's smart enough to dodge his debt by selling off the entire thing to AT&T in 1994 for a dazzling $12.6 billion. He has since moved on to future-minded projects such as Teledesic, his $9 billion partnership with Bill Gates, Boeing, and Motorola to create what the book calls "an Internet in the sky, a satellite network that provides fast, cheap Internet access worldwide."

The dissolution and triumphant reconstruction of the McCaw family fortune is an intricate tale of shrewdly choreographed deals, and Corr tells it well, in an assured, crystal-clear and tautly paced entrepreneurial narrative. That said, Money from Thin Air does a better job of dissecting the technical minutiae of McCaw's empire-building than it does at dramatizing or interpreting the personalities or psyches of its main players, foremost McCaw. Corr tries hard to paint McCaw as another of those quirky, New Economy, redwood forest visionaries à la Bill Gates, full of complexities. But Corr fails at making much of a vivid character of McCraw or hitting the essence of what drives him to take such vertiginous risks. Perhaps that has to do with the one quality in his subject he seems to nail--McCaw's seeming desire to be as invisible (or, many of his employees would say, inaccessible) as possible. By Corr's own admission, McCaw agreed to all of two interviews for this book before he got bored and politely waved Corr away. You may not get caught up in the characters of Money from Thin Air, but you'll keenly follow McCaw as he profits his way across the frontier of an emerging telecommunications market. --Timothy Murphy

From Publishers Weekly
McCaw may not have invented cellular communications, but he earned his place at the top of the industry as one of the first entrepreneurs who believed that the public would embrace mobile phones. In this lively biography, Corr, a reporter for the Seattle Times, chronicles the Seattle native's odyssey, which began after his college graduation in 1973, when he bought a small cable television company in rural Washington and built it into one of the largest cable operations in the country. As he expanded his empire, he kept a watchful eye on the fledgling cellular industry. When the government began auctioning off franchises in 1984, McCaw jumped into the frenzy. With the financing from of Michael Milken's junk bonds, he spent the next several years buying as many cellular licenses as possible. Always just a step ahead of bankruptcy, he sold his cellular company to AT&T in 1994 for $12.6 billion after it became clear that McCaw Communications didn't have the resources to compete with better-financed telecommunications giants. Corr does a solid job of capturing the Wild West spirit of the mobile phone industry's early days, when there were few rules and fewer business models. He's less successful, though, in describing McCaw's current venture, a partnership with Bill Gates and others to launch a satellite communications network. While Corr touches on McCaw's relationships with his parents and brothers, this is first and foremost a story about McCaw's obsession with creating a cellular phone powerhouse. Agent, Kris Dahl of ICM. Author tour. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 310 pages
• Publisher: Crown Business; 1st edition (June 13, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812926978
• ISBN-13: 978-0812926972
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #622,342 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining Book!, June 20, 2000

By A Customer

The biography book provides an insightful story of how McCaws build his first empire of cable systems quickly by purchasing other companies aggressively and improving customer service.

The book then moves to the even more exciting story of how this communications tycoon capitalize early on the huge market of wireless communications, build a much bigger empire, and sold it to AT&T.

The author did a good job in providing an unbiased story supported with sufficient research. Given the combination of the entertaining writing style with the story of the great entrepreneur, I couldn't quite put the book down.

Highly Recommended.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Boring Billionaire, December 18, 2000

By	R. Spell "raspell" (Memphis, TN USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This book is obviously the story of Craig McCaw and how he made his fortune in the cellular phone market. The book does a good job of summarizing Craig's life from a family tragedy that shaped his business life, to his strong belief in cellular communication and how that made him a millionaire.

The good news/bad news is that he eschews the fame and glory of a typical egomaniac like Donald Trump. It's great from a role model standpoint but since McCaw is so protective of his privacy and is around so few people, it was difficult to write a glamorous tale of an unglamorous life. Particularly since there is no mention of McCaw ever being interviewed by the author. Therefore, you are left with the history of cellular phone development in America coupled with mention of McCaw's unique management style.

That was enough for me as I had no knowledge of the business and it was interesting to see how a conservative man leveraged himself to great wealth. But don't buy this book if you want stories of drugs, models or other scandals. This story is nothing more than a successful business tale and that is enough.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Riddle Wrapped Inside an Enigma, July 17, 2000

By A Customer

Churchill's immortal description of the Soviet Union perfectly describes the shadowy Craig McCaw--probably the least known billionaire in America. Corr provides penetrating insights, all the more remarkable given a less than cooperative subject. McCaw is interesting because of the dichotomy between his bold, intuitive business gambits and his seemingly shy personality. In an age of CEO megalomaniacs--Bill Gates, Ted Turner, Donald Trump, and Larry Ellison--McCaw is a refreshing change. Yet Corr shows that there is a personal sadness at the core of McCaw's being. The book's final scene is as poignant as it is inscrutable. McCaw the billionaire and business genius at last finding one being with whom he can publicly connect: Keiko (the killer whale star of "Free Willy"). This book is much more than a well-written business biography. Corr captures the Quiggian contradictions of success and self.