Learning Curve: A Novel of Silicon Valley (Silicon Valley Quartet)

Get an inside view of the breathless, winner-take-all world of high technology—Silicon Valley style—in this fast-paced corporate thriller. Veteran businessman Dan Crowen is finally handed the reins of a large, successful tech firm, Validator Software — only to be ordered by its eccentric owner, Cosmo Validator, to take a step that could destroy the company.

Young entrepreneur Alison Prue is at the helm of Validator’s upstart rival, eTernity. When the venture capitalists funding eTernity decide it’s time to take the the hot young startup public and go head-to-head against Validator, both Alison and Dan are caught up in a global tsunami of high-tech conspiracies.

Nothing’s as it seems in this high-stakes game of cat and mouse that will keep you guessing the whole way through.

“Respected Silicon Valley journalist Mike Malone has turned his scalpel-like perceptions into a novel. The chase scenes are more cerebral than physical as the reader careens through the boardrooms and bedrooms of that valley and its south-of-Market start-ups in San Francisco. It all rings true. I found the book both fun and fascinating” — Tom Perkins, legendary Silicon Valley venture capitalist and author of Valley Boy

“Mike Malone captures the drama and the romance of Silicon Valley as only he could. His characters, while fictional, feel as if they walked right out of Sand Hill Road. In Cosmo Validator, in particular, he has created an iconic Valley character.” — Jeff Skoll, eBay founding president; chairman of Participant Media