Silicon Follies

Thomas Scoville

• Publisher: Atria Books
• Year: 2001
• Topic: Literature
• Print ISBN:
  9780743411219
• Subtopic: Computer Science General
• eBook ISBN:
  9780743419451
• Index: Literature

Welcome to Silicon Valley -- where fortunes are fast, dating's dysfunctional, and computer geeks rule. Meet Paul Armstrong, a late-twenties computer "consultant" who sits in his cubicle at TeraMemory wondering where it all went horribly wrong.
"Well, I wasn't always a nerd. I started out as a liberal-arts type in college -- though I aggressively concealed this on my resume. Hiring managers don't like it. Non-technical outside interests. Bad sign."

Watch him order a latte from the ofÞce coffee cart and poke at his Chinese lunch special while his longtime pal Steve Hall, hacker extraordinaire, accuses him of selling out to The Man.
"When the money dries up, this place will be just like anywhere else. It was never the place, anyway -- that's what The Man will never understand."

Meet The Man himself: Barry Dominic, the þamboyant, lecherous, millionaire founder of TeraMemory. He insists they're poised to revolutionize networking with a cutting-edge technology, appropriately called WHIP.
"Nobody fucks with Barry Dominic."

That's where Liz Toulouse comes in. A Stanford English Lit grad and TeraMemory marketing associate, she accidentally cc's the entire company a snide e-mail about The Man's bad grammar on her very Þrst day....
"If only I'd had any idea. I'd have stayed in school. I'd have changed majors. Gotten a master's. Anything."

Welcome to Silicon Follies, a hilarious dot.comedy of ambition and disillusionment in a land of luck, loss, and sometimes even love.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Adrift Among the Cubicles
• The Disinhibition of Market Leaders
• Hacked in Seattle
• The Claw and the Classifieds
• Addressed for Success
• Large Number Eleven at the Tung Kee Noodle House
• Death by a Thousand Emails
• Psychrist, the Semiotic Demolition Derby and Deathmatch 3000
• Liz Faces the Wrath of the Nerd King
• The Whip Comes Down on Paul
• Liz Descends to the Engineer’S Level
• Why Barry Carries a Mig Stick
• Managing for Total Chaos
• Programming in Vampire Mode
• Where Elite Geeks Meet to Eat—and Run
• Looking For a Gal Who’S Quick With a Vaporizer
• Wizards with Harvard Degrees and $4,000 Suits
• The Women’s Locker Room Game—Decathlon of the Flesh
• “No Boundaries” for Barry’s Libido
• Liz Regroups at the Chateau
• Stalking the Wild Fry’s Salesperson
• Barry Announces the Death of the Nerd Maverick
• Zen Cats, Dragon’S Eyes and the Valley’S Gertrude Stein
• The Guru Gives a Pep Talk
• The Doom Server Atop the Throne of Infinite Logic
• The Sysadmin Vs. the World
• Afterglow of the Robotic Inferno
• Fire off the Press Releases! Sales Force, Start Your Engines!
• Marketing Mutiny and the Magic Love Burrito
• Kiki’s Salon Des Refusees—No Cyber-Talk, Please!
• What’s an Nda Between Friends?
• Kiki’s Story: Barry and the Big Red Bong
• Steve Draws a Bead on the Man
• Candy’s Comdex Freakout
• Last Chance—Squatters off Highway
• Comdex Burlesque—Barry Preaches to the Choir as Paul Duct-Tapes the Demos
• Modem Voodoo: Cause-and-Effect Breaks Down in the Lab
• Liz and Paul’a Dating Game
• Teramemory Stock Catches Fire; Productivity Plummets
• Hackers of the World, Unite—Geeks Plot Palace Coup
• Kiki’S Cryptic Errand—Shady Deals in the Apricot Orchard
• Ipo—Where’d Paul’s Office Go?
• Bidding for a Date with the Cfo on the Ebay of Love
• Left Hand Turn: the Lowly Sysadmin Moves One Step Closer to Barry
• Liz Wins the Tug-of-War Between Heart and Cubicle
• Geek Apocalypse: Four Days to Ship, and the Bugs are Everywhere
• Hot Words as Barry Barbecues His Board
• The Bad News—Whip Gets Whipped by Pundits
• Barry Dines on Candy at Fleur De Lys
• Green Tea and Red Ink: Barry Loses Billions Over Breakfast
• The Contractor’s Contractor—Migrant Labor on Steroids
• Layoff—Candy Gets Taken Out With the Trash
• Disappearing Boxsters, Mistaken Hot Tubs, and Necrophilia in the Footlights
• Caterers Become Cable Moguls; Barry Flies Down Under
• Barry, Beaten: the Rich Man and the Sea
• Paul Flames Out—Liz and Laurel Cash in
• Kiki and Barry Reunited by Iridium: Silence at $40/Minute
• Barry’s Singularity—Ship Without a Captain
• Mixed Reactions—Conflicting Emotions in Barry’s Wake
• Laurel Moves Out, Paul Moves in, and a Ceo Goes Ufo