What are Bill Gates and Larry Ellison really like? Two new books offer intriguing glimpses. Betting It All is based on the PBS series by the same name. The profiles are largely transcripts of the on-air interviews, with some context and notes provided by Michael Malone, editor at large for Forbes ASAP. The second book, on a similar theme, is The New Imperialists: How Five Restless Kids Grew Up to Virtually Rule Your World by Washington Post writer Mark Leibovich. He not only interviewed his subjects several times, but their close associates as well. Both writers emphasize the personal side of the subjects and, despite Malone's profiles being much more detailed, the pictures that emerge from the two are very similar.
Oddly enough, Gates and Ellison are the only subjects in common in these two collections. Leibovich's thesis, underscored by his title, is that Gates, Ellison, John Chambers, Steve Case, and Jeff Bezos have created companies that have changed our lives more profoundly than political leaders have. Malone [by contrast] attempts to characterize what it means to be an entrepreneur (being willing to stake it all) and interviews fifteen entrepreneurs in all, including several women.
The New Imperialists: How Five Restless Kids Grew Up to Virtually Rule Your World
Mark Leibovich
Prentice Hall Press, 2002. [ Buy this book ]
Betting It All: The Technology Entrepreneurs
Michael S. Malone
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2001.