Facing the Fire

Three 23 year old graduates of MIT come out of school with a powerful internet software product they developed in collaboration while undergraduates. They are Dave, a moody and intense mathematician with a troubled family background; Raj, the brilliant son of two Indian doctors who is under intense familial pressure to abandon computer science and go to medical school; and Mardi, an engineering major who switched to philosophy in the middle of her university career, and who is a gifted programmer. They come to San Francisco to launch a business to develop and sell their software in the turbulence of the dot-com boom, and are eventually introduced to Stuart Jennings, a 49 year old former wunderkind and technology pioneer who is struggling to make a comeback after a failed venture and a broken marriage. Stuart reluctantly takes them under his wing, absorbed as he is with his own immediate financial crises and his angst over his separation from his precocious 10 year old son. Slowly he becomes seduced by his young office-mates' drive and dedication, and begins to take an active interest in getting them funded. Former colleagues encourage him and one introduces him to Page Mills, a legendary venture capitalist, the most celebrated woman in her field. He pitches the deal to her over dinner, and she agrees to provide startup "angel" funding. But Page has her own unique rules of conducting business and her funding comes at an unusual price. Page puts up enough bootstrap funding to get them organized into a real business and with enough momentum to go seek venture capital. There is the organized chaos of trade shows and the ritual of formal presentations to the venture capitalists of Silicon Valley -- and the growing awareness that there is something more complex than usual in the bond between the three young entrepreneurs. Things are further complicated when Mardi aggressively seeks a personal relationship with Stuart. A bullying technology journalist with an old grudge against Stuart sets out to sabotage them in the eyes of the investment community. A competitor is discovered unexpectedly in the form of a former colleague who plants a programmer spy in their company. Coming to their aid are several colorful characters, including a performance artist using the alias I. M. Yu, and an androgynous, legendary computer hacker named Ray Man. There is a race to get the product out into the marketplace, the challenge of building a successful business in a minimal amount of time, in pursuit of a fleeting opportunity to take the company public and create enormous personal wealth in the process. And along the way, the struggle to overcome personal and business conflicts, amidst the revelations of deep secrets that have kept Dave, Raj and Mardi bound tightly together from the beginning.

Randall Stickrod has been an entrepreneur, technology executive, magazine publisher and writer. Known for pioneering work in the computer graphics industry, and launch of technology magazines, including Wired and Computer Graphics World, and a book on the science of healthy longevity. He has been an active participant in the Internet revolution from its earliest beginnings.