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1. Best book on VC ever written
   This book is a tour de force, combining great stories with deep insight, informed by the academic literature and author’s own considerable expertise, that does the best job I have seen explaining the various stages in VC and the nature of the unique contribution of VC to the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Absolute must read by all entrepreneurs, as well as policy makers and the larger public seeking to understand the dynamics behind disruptive innovation. Also brilliantly written

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2. An extremely useful book
   This is an extremely useful book for someone like me, who knew very little about Venture Capital and Silicon Valley. It explains the Valley’s history and its business dynamics very clearly, authoritatively and rigorously. I hope the author writes updates in the future — I’d love to hear him continue describing VC’s unfolding story. The best part about Mallaby is his modesty; he acknowledges the randomness of a firm’s success and failure, and is neither uncritical nor hypercritical of VC and tech in general. It’s so rare and terrific to read someone who presents wonderfully reported topics without drinking the Kool-Aid nor hating the game and/or the players.

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3. Very interesting
   I really enjoyed this book. It does a great job of giving enough details to be interesting but not to the point of being dense.I would have given 5 stars except he says the word “duly” about 30 times and he makes a huge issue out of the fact that most VC workers are men.

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4. incredibly written
   read this if you are a founder. 10/10. an epic read on brief history of venture capital as a whole

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5. The Power Law – Three books in one. Two of them good.
   Startups without venture capital is like one hand clapping. For those not familiar with Venture Capital as an industry, its inception and evolution and role in building the U.S. innovation ecosystem, this book is a valuable addition and worth a read.That said this book feels like it written by committee, each responsible for a third of the book.The first third of the book, a survey of the history of venture capital to the end of the 20th century is a good overview, albeit one with a very parochial view. All of these early histories, this one included, offer a very limited perspective on the role of the military in funding/founding Silicon Valley in the midst of the Cold War. It’s not unexpected as most of those efforts are buried in projects and reports that only now are becoming declassified. But their impact was substantial on the early days of Silicon Valley. To be fair, it would be extremely difficult for academic historians who didn’t have code word clearances to understand this. So far none have.As the second third of the book crosses into the 21st century it loses its dispassionate perspective of trying to find meaning and context and instead reads as a paean to Sequoia Capital and Accel. This might be an artifact of the narrative as the book traces the evolution of venture through the lens of individual Venture Capitalists and their firms (Patterson and Swartz, Moritz and Leone/Morritz, et al.). However, I found this section obsequious to the point you’d think the author was an investor in their funds.The last third of the book provides valuable insight on the evolution and growth of venture capital in China. It’s one of the few coherent retrospectives about the growth of Chinese VC I’ve read.Finally, two points worth noting. The first, is that this is not a history of all of venture capital. In the 20th century most VC firms invested in all forms of technology; hardware, software and starting in the 1980’s, life sciences (therapeutics, devices and diagnostics.) But by the beginning of the 21st century most firms specialized. However in reading the book you’d have no idea that Life Science VC’s exist. Yet arguably the companies they’ve funded have provided more value to society than every social media investment ever made.As a closing note, and this has nothing to do with the value of the book, is the authors unabashed view that venture capital is just fine as is, don’t screw with it. Yet at the end of the day venture for all it has done in creating an innovation ecosystem, is an unregulated financial asset class without any morals. It’s equally happy funding Apple and Moderna (Covid Vaccines) as it has Juul (addicting teens to tobacco) or Facebook (the Purdue Pharma of social media.)Worth a read.

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6. Very Well Written History of Venture Capital
   I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author made the history and evolution of Venture Capital very readable and understandable. The book also provides insights into the thinking and personalities of the prime movers of Silicon Valley. As an aside the author illustates how unlikeable Marl Zuckerberg is as when he showed up to a VC meeting in his pajamas. That is what you call chutzpah or is it arrogance? No wonder Sheryl Sandberg quit. She has no chance of helping this guy.

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7. Required Reading for Anyone in Tech
   This book is a riveting retelling of the rise and rollercoaster ride of venture capital over the past 50 years. It’s a reminder of how young the industry is, how much it has achieved, and how much yet remains to be figured out. I’d recommend this to any tech enthusiast – it also reads like a short history of the modern internet era.

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8. Why the venture capital activity succeeded mainly in silicon valley
   The book reviews the history of venture capital activity in silicon valley and other places. You may skip some chapters without losing important ideas. But make sure to read the last chapter, Conclusion, where the author discusses the question, “what is the contribution of the venture capital activity to the economy and the welfare, and why this activity succeeded in silicon valley and failed in the east coast and Europe?”. To answer this question, the author presents some thought-provoking ideas.

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9. Produto veio com manchas de tinta

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10. Great read if you’re interested in the history of VC investing and Silicone Valley.

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11. At the outset, Mallaby lays out two objectives for his book: (1) to explain the venture capital mindset, and (2) to evaluate its social impact (such as in creating meaningful products or ensuring diversity or better corporate governance). He succeeds in his first objective extremely well, covering the history of investments from its early days in companies such as Fairchild (that changed the history of the chip industry) to recent fiascos such as Theranos and WeWork, exploring investors’ changing mindset and approach through that journey. His treatment of the second objective is relatively superficial though, whether in his discussions on the creation of meaningful products or on the diversity in venture funds and their investment criteria or on corporate governance. However, we also get a bonus third objective from the book — the narration of several interesting “war stories” in companies ranging from Atari, Genentech and Intel, to Apple, Google and Facebook to more recent ones such as Uber.The power law occurs when the winners advance at an accelerating and exponential rate, rather than a linear one. The 80:20 rule such as the one where 20% of the population own 80% of the wealth is one example of this. The book covers the various phases of venture investments in detail, starting with those by rich entrepreneurs to early innovations such as pooled capital (from limited partners) and activism capital (where investors played a key role in choosing managers and strategies), the era of creation of networks and “coopetition” (co-operation and competition at the same time), the no-holds-barred growth-investing style perpetuated by Softbank’s Masayoshi Son in the late 1990s, structured angel investments by the likes of Y Combinator, a tilt in the balance towards founders brought about by companies such as Google and Facebook and finally, the return to activist investing in companies such as WeWork and Uber. The book covers the history in multiple geographies, mainly in the US and in China, and to a small extent, in India as well. It also covers the history of several of the more significant firms such as Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia.The role and importance of venture capital is a hotly debated topic. While it cannot be denied that it has played and continues to play an important role in our progress, do venture capitalists create innovation or do they merely show up for it? Could they have done more to avoid some of technology’s adverse social impact or to encourage technologies such as greentech? Mallaby largely speaks out in favour of the venture capitalists but this part of the book is not as fleshed out as the rest of it. He argues that the future can only be discovered and not predicted, and this is the only form of capital that can enable this discovery by willing to take a large amount of risk (it was hence initially referred to as adventure capital). Mallaby argues that venture capitalists succeeded more due to skills than luck and companies such as Cisco and Google became what they are due to extensive coaching. He exonerates the investors from governance nightmares in companies such as Theranos, WeWork and Uber by arguing that more than three-quarters of late-stage venture funding in the United States between 2014 and 2016 came from non-traditional investors such as mutual funds, hedge funds, and sovereign wealth funds. He does acknowledge the diversity issue however given the fact that a large proportion of the partners in these firms and the founders of their investee companies tend to be white men.Overall, the book is well-researched, laid out well and importantly, is easy and interesting to read. While I do have reasonable prior knowledge of the industry, I think a lay person would enjoy this equally. So, a 5-star book for me!Pros: Extremely well-researched history, several interesting anecdotes, an interesting readCons: Superficial treatment of the social aspects

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12. Hola, me decepcionó mucho la calidad de este libro. Efectivamente se trata de un escaneo de las páginas originales de muy mala calidad y que no permite una lectura cómoda. No podré ir más allá de las primeras páginas. Me sorprende que Amazon haya dejado pasar este tipo de producto. ¿Podría decirme si hay otra edición en Kindle que pueda descargar?Muy cordialmente.

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13. Toute l’histoire des VC (investisseurs) depuis les années 60, passionnant et rempli d’infos qui permettent de mieux comprendre l’histoire et l’économie de la tech (mais pas que)

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