Présentation de l'éditeur
In
The Virtue of Prosperity, Dinesh D'Souza examines the spiritual and social crisis spawned by the new economy and new technologies of the last ten years. D'Souza questions the basic premise of the American dream that prosperity and "progress" will better the human condition. Anchored in history, rich in anecdote, and supported by state-of-the-art data,
The Virtue of Prosperity is a tough-minded critique of our high-tech culture, with a surprising prescription for doing well and doing good.
Extrait
Chapter One: A World Without LimitsWhat's New About the New Economy
We have it in our power to begin the world all over again.
-- Thomas Paine
The young people in high tech, who have not learned to talk better, describe it as a "holy shit experience." This is how it works. You are a graduate student living in a group house and paying $375 a month. You have no steady source of income; you are just barely making ends meet. But you have a Big Idea for a company. You've developed software that enables corporate Web sites to handle large volumes of traffic. Or you've figured out a way to use the Net to improve efficiencies in the medical supplies business. Or you've got a new idea for making web sites more interactive. Whatever.
It doesn't matter who you are or where you come from. You are now the founder of a company. You come up with a cool, offbeat name -- something techno-sophisticated, like QuantumFour.com, or offbeat like Waitingforgodot.com. You approach investors with your plans for taking over a whole sector of the market. You promise the investors a "ten bagger," an investment that increases tenfold in value. They're skeptical about where your company's profits are going to come from, but you emphasize that at this point "mind share" is really important.
Somehow you manage to convince them that your idea is hot and you are cool. They give you start-up money, and you hire a lawyer and establish a corporate identity. You set up a bank account, find yourself a logo, design some letterhead, and then hire a dozen employees. You've got a bookkeeping guy, a Web guy, a marketing guy, and so on, but you've made it clear to them that there is no strict division of labor, and everyone takes turns taking out the trash. You give these employees options, which at this point are worthless pieces of paper.
You and your team set up shop in a beat-up old office that you've leased for a year at $1,000 a month. It doesn't get too much sun and the landlord had better hope the fire inspector doesn't drop by. Otherwise it serves the purpose. Basically, you move in. You put in eighteen-hour days. Sometimes you fall asleep on the secondhand sofa; soon you start keeping a toothbrush at the office. You dress like a slob and live on Whoppers, Twinkies, and cherry Coke. You rarely read the newspaper, and you don't return phone calls from friends and family. You're totally focused on making your concept work.
Sometimes it doesn't. That's the fear that haunts every start-up. And you know what failure means, because you've seen it happen and you know it ain't pretty. You don't want to default on the rent and have to fire all your employees. You don't want angry investors banging on your door because they got back only eight cents on the dollar. Most of all, you don't want a year and a half of your life to go to waste. But that's the chance you take, as you set your sights on that Wall Street version of Powerball: the initial public offering.
The IPO is the Silicon Valley equivalent of hitting the jackpot. It's even better than being bought by America Online or Yahoo! Either way, forget about moving up the ranks in a traditional company, meticulously putting aside a bit every month, and building up your savings so you can retire with a nest egg, a pension plan, and a gold watch. What you and your friends are after is instant tycoon status. The Big Score. So far things look promising. Your company seems to h
