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The New Imperialists
Drawn from interviews with friends, childhood mentors, family, former bosses, classmates, colleagues, and rivals who have known these powerful individuals at different stages of their lives, a fascinating look at the business titans of the twenty-first century, including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and John Chambers, documents the formative events and influences in each man's life to explain their meteoric rise to success.
320 pages, Hardcover
Published January 15, 2002
About the author
Mark Leibovich
8 books138 followersMark Leibovich is The New York Times Magazine chief national correspondent, based in Washington, D.C. In 2011, he received a National Magazine Award for his story on Politico's Mike Allen and the changing media culture of Washington. Prior to coming to The New York Times Magazine, Leibovich was a national political reporter in the Times's D.C. bureau. He has also worked at The Washington Post, The San Jose Mercury News, and The Boston Phoenix. Leibovich lives with his family in Washington, D.C.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 11, 2019
The New Imperialists: How Five Restless Kids Grew Up To Virtually Rule your World
(2002) Mark Leibovich
Published shortly after two cultural shocks, the 9/11 terrorist attack on America and the financial Dot.com bubble bust (the NASDAQ lost half its value), this is a somewhat interesting, biographical study and story about five technology titans who wanted to, and did, change the world: Larry Ellison, Oracle; Jeff Bezos, Amazon; John Chambers, Cisco; Bill Gates, Microsoft; and Steve Case, AOL/Time-Warner.
I remember what it was like back then—the mid nineties—when the Internet, email, and the World Wide Web was just getting started. In 1994, at the age of forty-four, I returned to college to pursue a degree in Psychology, and an education in this seemingly brand new world. I was familiar with the Macintosh desktop computer and its software, Appleworks, but thought I should get ‘up-to-speed’ with the newer and fast growing Microsoft and Windows DOS, and this new thing—the Internet. I took courses in both and even wrote in http code. I had an edu email address. I also made some money in the market betting on this new thing, and then lost some, a lot. In school at that time, there was a “computer lab” with desktop computers for general use, and a “bank” of five Psych-Lit terminals in the Library. That was it. There was no social media nor wide-spread use of the Internet. The Web was primarily used by academics and scientists.
Reading about these men then, it’s apparent none of them envisioned that the world we are living in now would be a consequence of what they were creating. Oh, they all had a notion that they were changing the world, but not how. It might be that their successes, and the extraordinary wealth created, was just a case of timing—right time, right place, a “coincidence of circumstance” (Tolstoy). Sure, they were all smart, driven, creative and confident … but maybe mostly lucky. You can’t really say they are of a specific “type”—meaning personality, or share a management style, the same formula for success. They are all different, though all white men and come from “privileged” zip codes. And, they are all super competitive for sure, ego driven.
It seems this age we are living in was a confluence of events, an accident—like us humans. No grand design by some creative force or god, just one thing leading to another and all things interacting, “playing” off one another, and if you stop and contemplate, try and make sense of it all, well, damn – I’m just a man, and you can find me, “down drinking at the bar” (Wainwright).
Saturday, May 11, 2019
(2002) Mark Leibovich
Published shortly after two cultural shocks, the 9/11 terrorist attack on America and the financial Dot.com bubble bust (the NASDAQ lost half its value), this is a somewhat interesting, biographical study and story about five technology titans who wanted to, and did, change the world: Larry Ellison, Oracle; Jeff Bezos, Amazon; John Chambers, Cisco; Bill Gates, Microsoft; and Steve Case, AOL/Time-Warner.
I remember what it was like back then—the mid nineties—when the Internet, email, and the World Wide Web was just getting started. In 1994, at the age of forty-four, I returned to college to pursue a degree in Psychology, and an education in this seemingly brand new world. I was familiar with the Macintosh desktop computer and its software, Appleworks, but thought I should get ‘up-to-speed’ with the newer and fast growing Microsoft and Windows DOS, and this new thing—the Internet. I took courses in both and even wrote in http code. I had an edu email address. I also made some money in the market betting on this new thing, and then lost some, a lot. In school at that time, there was a “computer lab” with desktop computers for general use, and a “bank” of five Psych-Lit terminals in the Library. That was it. There was no social media nor wide-spread use of the Internet. The Web was primarily used by academics and scientists.
Reading about these men then, it’s apparent none of them envisioned that the world we are living in now would be a consequence of what they were creating. Oh, they all had a notion that they were changing the world, but not how. It might be that their successes, and the extraordinary wealth created, was just a case of timing—right time, right place, a “coincidence of circumstance” (Tolstoy). Sure, they were all smart, driven, creative and confident … but maybe mostly lucky. You can’t really say they are of a specific “type”—meaning personality, or share a management style, the same formula for success. They are all different, though all white men and come from “privileged” zip codes. And, they are all super competitive for sure, ego driven.
It seems this age we are living in was a confluence of events, an accident—like us humans. No grand design by some creative force or god, just one thing leading to another and all things interacting, “playing” off one another, and if you stop and contemplate, try and make sense of it all, well, damn – I’m just a man, and you can find me, “down drinking at the bar” (Wainwright).
Saturday, May 11, 2019
January 31, 2020
Lifts back the veil on tech CEOs before the days of Zuckerberg and Web 2.0. Shows some overachieving, competitive, egoistic kids who grow up to be salesmen really more than technologists; as well as some if not all of them being quite dysfunctional, greedy, power hungry, naive, overly positive, unwilling to criticize themselves, relentless workaholics
December 8, 2020
More interesting than I thought it would be and still relevant even though it is almost 20 years old. Glad I read it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews