The Monk and the Riddle

Randy Komisar, writing with Kent Lineback, published this in 2000. Komisar had worked with LucasArts, Apple, WebTV, TiVo and Claris, and describes himself as a virtual chief executive, someone who advises a handful of start-ups at a time on planning and decisions without running any of them day to day. The book is built as a narrative rather than a manual: he conducts a series of conversations with would-be entrepreneurs who want to start an online funeral business, and the advice emerges from the exchange. Much of it is general enough to apply outside Silicon Valley, though the specifics of venture capital and of how deals are done there run through it. The reviewer notes the mixture of lofty claims about business as a social institution for coping with change and practical counsel about revising strategies and business models while holding to the one big idea a company pursues. The argument the book is remembered for is the warning against what Komisar calls the Deferred Life Plan, the belief that you must do what you have to do before you may do what you want to do. His answer is that time is the only resource that matters and that drive without passion does not carry a founder far.

Written from the kirkus Reviews notice of the book, published 1 May 2000.

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