Nudist on the Late Shift : And Other True Tales of Silicon Valley

As a novelist and writer forWiredand other publications, Po Bronson has earned a reputation as the most exciting and authentic literary voice to emerge from Silicon Valley. In his national bestsellerThe Nudist on the Late Shifthe tells the true story of the mostly under-thirty entrepreneurs and tech wizards, immigrants and investors, dreamers and visionaries, who see the Valley as their Mecca. Taking us inside the world of these newcomers, brainiacs, salespeople, headhunters, utopians, plutocrats, and innovators as they transform our culture,The Nudist on the Late Shiftis a defining portrait of a new generation in the whirl of an information revolution and an international gold rush. Po Bronson is the author of two novels and one book of nonfiction.Bombardiers, a dark satire of high finance, was an international bestseller that was translated into twelve languages.The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest, soon to be a feature film from 20th Century Fox, is a comedy of Silicon Valley. His third bestseller,The Nudist on the Late Shift and Other True Tales of Silicon Valley, demonstrates that Bronson's wit and imagination apply as well to nonfiction as to fiction.

Bronson writes feature articles for <i>The New York Times Magazine</i> and <i>Wired</i> and op-ed pieces for <i>The Wall Street Journal</i> and <i>The New York Times.</i> Bronson has created a one-hour dramatic television series called "South of Market," derived from his Silicon Valley experiences.<br><br>He is also a founder of The Grotto, a writer's cooperative in San Francisco; Chairman of the Board of Consortium Book Sales & Distribution, the exclusive national representative of sixty independent publishers; and a board member of Mercury House, a literary nonprofit press in San Francisco.<br><br>Bronson has a B.A. in Economics from Stanford University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University.

If the most torturous fate was a mind, caged, who would understand? If you always found life's elixir in striving rather than getting, who would understand? If you gambled rather than nest-egged and hit jackpot once of seven, who would understand? BY CAR, BY PLANE, THEY COME. They just show up. They've given up their lives elsewhere to come here. They come for the tremendous opportunity, believing that in no other place in the world right now can one person accomplish so much with talent, initiative, and a good idea. It's a region where who you know and how much money you have have never been less relevant to success. They come because it does not matter that they are young or left college without a degree or have dark skin or speak with an accent. They come even if it is illegal to do so. They come because they feel that they will regret it the rest of their lives if they do not at least give it a try. They come to be a part of history, to build the technology that will reshape how people will live and work five or ten years from now. They come for the excitement, just to be a part of it. They come because they are competitive by instinct and can't stand to see others succeed more than they. They come to make enough money so they will never have to think about money again. They are the new breed, Venture Trippers, who get off on the dizzying adventure of bloodwork. It is a mad, fertile time. Working has become nothing less than a sport here in Superachieverland: people are motivated by the thrill of the competition and the danger of losing, and every year the rules evolve to make it all happen more quickly, on higher margins, reaching ever more amazing sums. They come from places wallowing in an X-Y-axis attitudinal coordinate, a slow-mo way of thinking about one's life that offers a plodding story line they can't manage to suspend their disbelief of. They try to live that story, but they keep popping out, keep finding themselves saying, "What the hell am I doing with my life?" They come because what they see ahead of them, if they stay where they are, is a working life that seems fundamentally and unavoidably boring. Nothing seems worse than the fate of boringness. They feel they are being offered a neo-Faustian trade-off by society: all of life's sprawling dimensions will be funneled through the narrow pipe of the career path. And rather than choosing not to work hard, the Venture Trippers are taking the opposite approach from the Slackers. They're saying, If I'm going to have to make that trade-off, then hell, why the fuck not? I'm young, let's raise the stakes. Let's up the bet. Let's make it exciting. Let's put it all on black. Let 'em roll. And they come.