| How to Hack A Party Line: The Democrats and Silicon Valley |
In this wickedly funny and often disturbing tale of power, Sara Miles explores the back-room deals of canny Democratic Party insiders and twenty-eight-year-old mulitmillionare geeks as they attempt to build Silicon Valley's first political machine.
Excerpts
It was a perfet California morning in the fall of 1996, with the radio reporting a warm front and a hot market, and Wade Randlett was driving fast down Highway 280 toward Silicon Valley, laughing into a cell phone. With his wire-rimmed shades and suspenders, the dark-haired thirty-one-year-old could pass for a successful investment banker, except that he seemed to be having too much fun.
At Sand Hill Road, tires squealing, Randlett turned and raced his black Audi coupe up the landscaped driveway leading to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Silicon Valley's most prestigious venture-capital firm.
The phone rang again. Randlett slowed to forty-five. It was the White House. "I'll call you back," he said, casually.
Reviews
Readers fascinated by either national politics or Silicon Valley will definitely want to read this vivid narrative of the sometimes explosive juxtaposition of these two highly idiosyncratic subcultures... An involving, sometimes appalling "sausage-making" tale of a political courtship whose consequences may be substantial.
--Mary Carroll, Library Journal
Miles has excellent reporter's instincts and a light, descriptive prose style . . . . A lively and illuminating read.
--Steven Johnson, Washington Post
A sweeping debut not only for the author but for this branch of American poli-sci.
--Kirkus Review
