Sand Hill Road

Sand Hill Road will appeal to any or all readers on these grounds: * A fun novel with good guys, bad guys, unscrupulous effects of greed and large amounts of money in the VC world, and some leaps of imagination. * Numerous tidbits of real life flavor of the environs of Sand Hill Road and its surroundings as well as parts of Italy and England. Brings back memories for locals and travelers. * Geekiness of mathematics and computation. For many, this is esoteric, but great for geeks. Still, it does not get in the way for the uninitiated -- and they might learn something too about geeks!The a book pulls the reader in, and it is sometimes hard to stop reading. Very briefly,Sand Hill Road 50 years ago was a sleepy little road that went from what is now the Stanford Shopping Center (owned by the University) and wending its way into the foothills of Santa Cruz mountains. SLAC, formerly known as the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, now just SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, runs roughly parallel to Sand Hill Road for a distance of about 2 miles. Over the years, the land along Sand Hill Road -- owned by Stanford -- has built up, first with apartments and later with various kinds of businesses. For the purposes of this story, the land directly opposite the main SLAC entrance is now occupied by a number of venture capitalists (VCs) who have had their hands in many very big pies in Silicon Valley and the surroundings. Huge amounts of money lurk here, virtually if not literally.Massimo, the protagonist, is a physicist of Italian origin. His specialty is in making computer calculations related to the design of accelerators for particles, such as electrons, that could be useful at SLAC. However, he has a strong interest in pure and applied mathematics. The reader is soon introduced to his intellectual mistress, the so-called Navier-Stokes equations, which are used to describe fluid flow. (His girlfriend does not use this characterization explicitly, but the competition is clear.) The reader does not need to know anything about the equations themselves, except that they are very celebrated, and much is _not_ known about solutions to them. Massimo comes upon the idea to apply computer models for the equations to follow not the chaotic flow of particles of a liquid but rather the flow of money in the market given a large dataset of transactions. If his methods turn out to have predictive power, then that knowledge would be transformative -- and very disruptive -- of the market.By chance Massimo meets a VC from Sand Hill Road, and he casually describes his idea over a coffee. That conversation snowballs into more conversations, and it eventually the VC people approach him with a deal: They will support his research as a startup and own the eventual intellectual property rights. In exchange, Massimo, and it turns out two students, would receive stock shares for an eventual IPO.From here, things become complicated, and saying much more would be a spoiler. Suffice it to say that there is much intrigue and double-dealing (to put it mildly). The enormous amount of money potentially at stake drives the actions of the bad-guys in exotic ways. The reader may see some of the events coming and want to warn Massimo, "No, don't do that," but some will come as surprises.For people who actually live in the Stanford area, the book is a treasure trove of tidbits on real roads and places. Reading the book is like sitting with the author over a beer at the Dutch Goose (a beer and hamburgers place not far away) in reminiscence. It is a huge amount of fun. The author goes to some lengths to pull in details from other places of the world. One is Rome, from which Massimo came, and a very famous coffee shop near the Pantheon called Caffé Sant' Eustachio. This is a place dear to my heart for its coffee. Some time is spent about Massimo's past and the auto that he had, and the prized bicycle with Campagnolo parts that he brought from Italy to California. There are many details of London, but my experience with London is not sufficient to evaluate the details.There are a few glitches. Very likely a spelling checker ran amok and spelled the Italian automobile as Alpha Romeo instead of Alfa Romeo. (That may be fixed by the time you read this review.) There is an extended discussion of Massimo interacting with a English tailor in London, during which Massimo acts more like a relatively naive American regarding men's fashion rather than a natural born Italian from Rome. That did not ring true. There are a few others, but such things are really minor.The hardest problem is something that most readers will not notice, unless they are aware of the conditions under which people who work for universities and are funded by the Department of Energy (DOE). In particular, Massimo unilaterally enters into a deal with the VC people to offer what he considers HIS intellectual property. That property could eventually be worth billions of dollars! This part of the story will drive the lawyers of Stanford and DOE crazy. Unfortunately, dealing with the legal beagles in the novel would probably derail the whole story line, so the best plan for the reader is to just suspend disbelief and go along for the ride.Full disclosure: I have known the author for some time, having worked at SLAC for many years.

Sand Hill Rd. in California divides two worlds: venture capitalist companies and Stanford University with Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC) on the other. Usually the two sides do not mix – this story describes what happens when they do. Italian physicist, Massimo, is invited by venture capitalist company WVC to turn his mathematical skills from predicting flows of subatomic particles to flow of money on the world stock markets. Who will profit: the world, the physicist or the venture capitalist? I will not give away the plot. The story is set against a background of rich tapestry of SLAC history, reviews of good food, wine, music, fast cars, expensive bicycles, stock market practices, mathematics, physics and a kinky sex scene. The plot accelerates in the last few chapters, drawing the reader in. But the book is more than a thriller: the numbers of scientists are increasing, but their lives are poorly represented in fiction. In this story the scientist’s and the venture capitalist’s worldviews are compared. The scientists work together, building on past experiments and expertise and expanding the sum of knowledge. The venture capitalists fight each other and the successful ones then dissipate the wealth in over-lavish lifestyle. Even their philanthropy rings hollow – it is their strategies that cause people to be poor in the first place.

Patrick Krejcik’s debut novel perfectly captures the milieu of Silicon Valley, with all its excesses, its unique entrepreneurial spirit, its wine and food, and its Californian vibe. Told through the “outsider” eyes of Italian physicist, Massimo, we are drawn into an intriguing world of young tech entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and Stanford scientists (as well as a few classical musicians). There is much mystery and suspense in this novel that keeps the reader on edge and guessing, mixed with just the right amount of laugh-out-loud humor and passionate romance. We cannot help but cheer for this flawed, and very likeable, man to win not only in work, but also in love.

Sand Hill Road runs between the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SNAL) at Stanford University and a host of office buildings that are often described as the “venture capital of the world.” Normally there is little communication between the 2 sides of the road. Massimo is a dapper young physicist at SNAL working on chaos theory. The novel follows his adventures as he first learns that his expertise may be significantly useful in predicting such financial fine points as the outcomes of initial offerings and then finds himself embroiled in the venture capital world. Along the way he duels with numerous high intensity young women while discovering that capitalists are indeed from a different world than physicists.This is an interesting novel with a tightly woven plot. Its main weakness may be the relentless intellectual and cultural superiority attributed to the main characters. People like this must exist in real life, but maybe not altogether in the same space-time. One real plus for the book are the detailed footnotes on relevant scientific and historical subjects.

I enjoyed the intelligence of the subject with evocative literary passages, striking similes and metaphors enriching the "landscape" of the setting and action. The plot is exciting with enough tension to keep you reading with anticipation. I found myself chuckling, in awe, and spellbound at times. The book grows on you as you follow the quirky and, in a way, humble scientist's narrative contrasted with the high tech world of finance. Its international flavor makes it very accessible to the modern well travelled reader.

Interesting, but rather too specialised for the average reader with limited understanding of computer technology, mathematics and high finance!

If you want a look into the world of high energy physics and venture capital in Silicon Valley through the eyes of a man of good tastes in Scotch, bicycles, espresso, and cars, this is the book for you. Our confident and tenacious hero survives his encounters with a variety of temptresses and snivelling pretenders, only to be felled by a cocaine fuelled... no spoilers. It is a well-crafted journey through a man's fantasy world in which his ego is well buttressed from the threats of the limitless wealth of the venture capitalists and thieving women who manipulate him with their sexuality.

Diese Buch verdient die volle Punktzahl; die Geschichte eine Physiker geschrieben von einem Physiker.Wer sich fuer das Silicon Valley mit allen seinen Facetten interessiert, findet in diesem Buch die spannende Geschichte eines Physiker der die Welt des Venture Capitals aus der Sicht der Wissenschaft betrachtet. Ich hoffe es wird einen weiteren Teil geben! Das Buch ist zwar auf Englisch geschrieben, aber die verwendete Sprache ist sehr gut zu folgen. Das liegt auch daran, dass man gedanklich in Geschichte foermlich versinkt.Well done.