The truly fortunate will be able to publicly float their company, or perhaps be bought out by an industry giant. True, relatively young people are making millions seemingly overnight. Also, the business climate of the high-tech computer industry is familiar enough that it has been parodied in episodes of The Simpsons and the panels of Doonesbury. That is, the new stars of industry are not rewriting many of the rules of business. The issues at the heart of Silicon Gold Rush are how to do business in a rapidly changing world.
Sudden growth puts pressure on corporate structures and requires decisive management.
Likewise, shifts in the market, say from the desktop environment to the Internet or intranet environment, mean that management has to be swift in recognition and response or risk losing the whole shebang. Southwick gives us details of how these issues have played themselves out in the industry by drawing on more than one hundred interviews with executives at some twenty-plus companies. This approach is the strength of the book, but it is also its weakness. Southwick does not so much make her points, but rather voices them through quotes. The opinions in the book are mostly delivered in quotation marks from industry players.