He s the kind of guy you can t help tripping over in D.C. where consultants are a dime a dozen. Among the faceless, mirrored three-story office buildings of Silicon Valley, however, Randlett becomes a star. He tutors the politically oblivious techies and finds a powerful benefactor in John Doerr, the legendary venture capitalist. Randlett is handsome, brash, arrogant to the point of queasiness, and a thoroughly indoctrinated member of the centrist Clintonian New Democrats. His downfall seems inevitable from the earliest pages of the book, especially as he tramples over Democratic insiders back in Washington.
Political people didn t get the technology or the business model.
They thought Silicon Valley was cheap, apathetic, and impossible to organize. And I thought, Whoever cracks Silicon Valley is going to be the cham-peen of the world. His impending doom is also foreshadowed by the sheer political cluelessness of the New Economy leaders. For example, Randlett travels to Seattle trying to spread his high-tech lobbying power beyond Silicon Valley and to pay homage to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Believe it or not, Bezos grand plan was the lawn sign in cyberspace.