High Times in the Valley

Po Bronson wants you to feel Silicon Valley's heartbeat. He wants you to know why people pour in from around the globe to struggle at no-name start-ups and fight for $1,200 studios next to strip malls. The valley is the epicenter of the digital revolution, the soul of change. Its lure must be more than a crass grab for cash, right?

Much more, according to Bronson, who views life in the high-tech mecca as nothing less than an existential journey. From the opening chapter of The Nudist on the Late Shift (Random House; 248 pages; $25), when he gushes about "meeting young people at the proving point of their lives who risked it all and would either succeed wildly or go down tragically," Bronson is on a crusade to capture the romance of this seemingly soulless patch of Northern California.

It's a seductive lead-in for this juicy collection of true tales. Bronson profiles the inventor who finances his idea by growing pot, the programmer who blows off a major project for a squirrel-hunting trip, the project manager who fantasizes about murdering a co-worker. Even the used-cubicle broker has his charms. As in his fictional satires, Bombardiers and The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest, this clever storyteller keeps you laughing as you breeze from one episode to the next.

But this time Bronson gets serious too: "I wanted to know what burns in the heart," he says. So he finds a struggling French entrepreneur with no venture funding, no friends and a work visa about to expire, who confesses, "There's a knife at my throat. Sometimes I get really, really scared." A motherly saleswoman talks about going for "the kill" when she closes a deal. A CEO starts to unravel in the final sweaty minutes of an IPO that just might fizzle. The tension is palpable, the fear real, as Bronson chronicles "the living hell of radical uncertainty that is start-up life."

So why does The Nudist feel so often like a motivational speech for Amway recruits? Perhaps because of comments like "There is no true failure in Silicon Valley" or "To create and risk failing is the essence of feeling alive." When Bronson isn't exhorting readers to "give salesmen their due respect," he's reminding us that the futurist George Gilder is always right--technology will prevail. Through Bronson's rosy lens, everyone is boldly striving in the valley, even if it's just for free cappuccinos in the break room.

And when he eases up, he does so only partway. His idea of a dropout is a genius inventor taking a turn as a lead technologist for Disney. An engineer who moves to Maine to become a glass blower might have been a better example.

Like a Hollywood producer who has discovered a new starlet, Bronson is so fixated on the valley's magic that the greed, disillusionment and boredom that are just as much a part of the picture rarely come into focus. The only thing that seems to bother him is the vacant landscape. But what about the worker bees who assemble electronic components for subminimum wages on their cramped living-room floors? And how long can any but a handful of key players in a chaotic start-up sustain their contact highs? If Bronson had dared to bare all, then The Nudist would have been truly revealing.