The Plot to Get Bill Gates - Softcover

Rivlin, Gary

Softcover

ISBN 10: 070438129X ISBN 13: 9780704381292

Publisher: Quartet Books, 1999

Synopsis

The Plot to Get Bill Gates brings a fresh perspective to the avaricious, bloodthirsty behaviour of business icons and to the personality of Bill Gates himself. The result is a funny morality play about big business at the century''s end.'

About this title

From the Author

Taking on the Pretty Boys of High Tech
This book began with a facetious line delivered after a friend asked me how I'd sum up all that was going on in Silicon Valley. It was early in 1997, and at that point I was spending all of my time writing about the Valley, for San Francisco magazine and as a contributing writer for Upside. Ironically, though the eyes of the nation were on Silicon Valley, in the Valley all eyes seemed diverted northward to Redmond; Bill Gates's name was on everyone's lips. "It's all just a plot to get Bill Gates," I said to my friend. "A plot by everyone to prove themselves bigger, better, and smarter than this dislikable, slop-shouldered tyrant from Redmond." At that point I had been a journalist for more than 15 years. As a staff writer for an alternative weekly, I had covered Chicago's City Hall through most of the 1980s (resulting in the book, Fire on the Prairie), and I had spent several years as a street reporter on the youth violence beat (resulting in the book Drive-By). But by 1994, when I finished writing Drive-By, I was ready for a change. And just a short drive from my home was this stretch of land that, with the sudden surge of widespread interest in the Internet, was ground zero. In the mid '70s, I had spent a great deal of time in my high school's computer room attempting to master BASIC. I had started college as an engineering major--until switching out after getting interested in writing and in politics. But now it seemed journalism and my long dormant technical bent had merged. I dove whole hog into high tech, with an ingrained distrust for hype and hypocrisy while also bringing to the task a strong sense of narrative. I cranked out articles for a variety of publications while simultaneously searching for the story line that I thought would serve as the backbone for a book bringing readers into this era-defining business battle. I see myself first and foremost as a storyteller. And so my aim with this book is to present an entertaining and compelling tale that helps the general interest reader and industry veteran alike gain insights into the nature of competition in computerdom and the larger-than-life personalities who rule this world. In a nutshell, The Plot to Get Bill Gates is a story of obsession: obsession with money, obsession with the Big Strike, but mainly obsession with Bill Gates, the world's richest man and therefore the object of envy, attention, and resentment the world over. To my mind it's a tale of obsession worthy of Melville, where a long line of Captains of Industries have taken turns playing the role of Captain Ahab, ostentatious in their hate for Gates--the Great White Whale. The more he is attacked, the angrier and meaner (and larger!) this whale grows. I hope you enjoy.

About the Author

Gary Rivlin is the author of two acclaimed works of nonfiction, Drive-By and Fire on the Prairie: Chicago's Harold Washington and the Politics of Race, winner of the Carl Sandburg Award for Nonfiction and the Chicago Sun-Times Nonfiction Book of the Year. He has reported on city politics for The Chicago Reader and the East Bay Express. His work has appeared in many publications, including The Nation, Upside, In These Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle. In 1993, he received the San Francisco Bay Area Media Alliance's Print Journalist of the Year Award for his reporting on urban violence. He lives in Oakland and is editor of the East Bay Express.

Edition details

• Publisher: Quartet Books
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 070438129X
• ISBN 13: 9780704381292
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368