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Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure Paperback – October 1, 1996
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- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPenguin Books
- Publication dateOctober 1, 1996
- Grade level12 and up
- Reading age18 years and up
- Dimensions7.7 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
- ISBN-109780140257311
- ISBN-13978-0140257311
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From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : 0140257314
- Publisher : Penguin Books; Reprint edition (October 1, 1996)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780140257311
- ISBN-13 : 978-0140257311
- Reading age : 18 years and up
- Grade level : 12 and up
- Item Weight : 9.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #77,760 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #55 in History of Technology
- #154 in Company Business Profiles (Books)
- #718 in U.S. State & Local History
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Kaplan is widely known as a serial entrepreneur, technical innovator, bestselling author, and futurist. He co-founded four Silicon Valley startups, two of which became publicly traded companies. His best-selling non-fiction novel “Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure” was selected by Business Week as one of the top ten business books of the year, was optioned to Sony Pictures, and is available in Japanese, Chinese, and Portuguese. Kaplan has been profiled in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business Week, Red Herring, and Upside, and is a frequent public speaker.
Kaplan is currently a Fellow at The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics. He also teaches Philosophy, Ethics, and Impact of Artificial Intelligence in the Computer Science Department, Stanford University. He holds a BA (1972) from the University of Chicago in History and Philosophy of Science, and an MSE (1975) and PhD (1979) in Computer and Information Science, specializing in Artificial Intelligence and Computational Linguistics, from the University of Pennsylvania.
Companies co-founded: Winster.com (social games, 2004); Onsale.com (online auctions, 1994); GO Corporation (tablet computers, 1987); and Teknowledge (expert systems, 1981).
Products co-invented: The Synergy (first all-digital keyboard instrument, used for the soundtrack of the movie TRON); Lotus Agenda (first personal Information manager); PenPoint (tablet operating system used in the first smartphone, AT&T's EO 440); the GO computer (first tablet computer) and Straight Talk (Symantec Corporation's first natural language query system). He is also co-inventor of the online auction (patents now owned by eBay) and is named on 12 U.S. patents.
Published research: He has published papers in refereed journals including Artificial Intelligence, Communications of the ACM, Computer Music Journal, The American Journal of Computational Linguistics, and ACM Transactions on Database Systems.
Awards: Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Northern California (1998); Governor’s Electronic Commerce Advisory Council Member (under Pete Wilson, Governor of California, 1999); and an Honorary Doctorate of Business Administration from California International Business University, San Diego, California (2004).
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The plot tells the story of a high profile venture in the late 90s, Go Inc., from inspiration through fund raising and product development to fame, near success and ultimate failure. Anyone who may have thought about starting a new venture who wants to sit in the passenger seat and observe the whole ride in detail (though not too much detail -- it's an easy read) will enjoy. I wouldn't say the book is highly educational in a process sense (how to do this, how to do that...), but it does give a lot of high level insight into the difficult tradeoffs and predatory practices that can be confronted in trying to grow a business in high tech. I read it in a few days and enjoyed it thoroughly.
1. Death of Jerry's cat. My heart really pained after reading it.
2. Jerry willing to bring on Campbell as the CEO. This showed that he was not part of GO so that he could be the CEO. I think this is a very important quality one must have.
Again, a great read.
-ranjeet
Top reviews from other countries

Kaplan has an immersive storytelling and you feel you were with him during his meetings with
VCs, partners and competitors.
This book is worth every second you spend with it.