Silicon Valley - The Geeks Are Back In Charge?

securitas writes "The New York Times' Steve Lohr reports on a fundamental shift taking place in Silicon Valley in the post-dotcom era: the geeks are back in charge. New start-ups and companies that survived the bubble 'are based on innovation and are run by people with deep technical skills.' These companies have real technology and a solid technical base that have historically been the bedrock of Silicon Valley - something that was temporarily forgotten during the dotcom bubble. Profiled companies include Tellme Networks (speech recognition), InterTrust (DRM - digital rights management), VMware (virtual machines) and Scalix (Linux e-mail servers)."

Quattrone is out/Torvalds is in

[andy1307]

As in you-know-who Torvalds and Frank Quattrone [bayarea.com]

NEW YORK - The month-long criminal trial against Frank Quattrone, Silicon Valley's once-high-flying financier of the technology boom, crumbled Friday when a judge declared a mistrial after jurors deadlocked on a verdict.

Inside Frank Quattrone's Money Machine [businessweek.com]

Nobody knew it at the time, but the apex of the Internet rocket ride came on the morning of Dec. 9, 1999. Executives of computer maker VA Linux Systems Inc. gathered at 6 a.m. in the trading offices of Credit Suisse First Boston (CSR ) on the 17th floor of a San Francisco skyscraper for the company's initial public offering. Among those assembled were Larry M. Augustin, the chief executive, and his friend Linus Torvalds, the inventor of the Linux operating system, who was dressed in his customary T-shirt and sandals. Their three toddlers scampered around underfoot while the adults watched in stunned silence as the stock price jumped from 30 a share to more than 200 within minutes. Augustin nudged Torvalds and whispered: "Did you ever think we'd be here?" At the end of trading, the company's shares were worth 239.25 apiece, up 697.5%, making it the best-ever first-day IPO performance.

VMWare

[AmigaAvenger]

VMWare is considered a new startup? They have been around since 1998, andn actually have a very solid product at a reasonable price to offer... nope, can't be a dotcom2 startup!

The lord giveth and the lord taketh away..

[Lysol]

Two kickass reports about the whole 90's boom - one specifically going into some good detail on Quattrone - are viewable via Frontline.

Dot Con [pbs.org]

Wall Street Fix [pbs.org]

and even Bigger than Enron [pbs.org]

Dot Con is much more specific as far as the whole Quattrone thing goes. It's amazing cuz I went thru that with a company that I help found (like many others I'm sure) and it's just phenominal the greed that ensued and how investment bankers and investors just took most of the public for a ride.

I'm actually glad that I never invested during this time, however, I had many friends and family that did and just got sacked. If the majority of the public really knew what went on during this period of time, I doubt they'd look to invest again. Of course, nothing like this in tech will probably happen again any time soon, if ever.

Re:tellme does not belong on the list

[nebkor]

What the hell does TellMe do?? It sounds like a typical geek-less dotcom to me-

"Tellme helps its clients improve customer satisfaction and save millions of dollars by replacing traditional IVR and network prompters with a unified Internet-powered solution."

Huh??

This means that Tellme automates call centers. Call 800-GO-FEDEX, or 800-555-1212 (toll-free directory). Those are just two of Tellme's clients.

And how do you think Tellme does that? Built and runs a massive internet-integrated telco structure? With MBAs and VC? No. With a hard-core ops team filled with geeks of every stripe. How do you think they took a crappy speech-reco solution (Nuance), and turned it into a killer tool that actualy works? Suits? Certainly not with idiots like you.