High stakes, no prisoners
by Charles H. Ferguson · first published 1999
82% recommend14% neutral5% critical
Why HN recommends it
Insider account of founding Vermeer, building FrontPage and selling it to Microsoft in the 1990s web era. Valued for candid detail on hardball tactics, VC dealings and negotiation; suits aspiring startup founders.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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I'm interested in insider books from startup people. I really liked Charles Ferguson's "High Stakes, No Prisoners". Are there any others like it? (Of course I have Founders at Work)
on “Ask HN: Good Silicon Valley/Boston "Insider" Startup Books?” ↗I've read it somewhere; sorry, I don't have a reference to hand. You can read about Ellison berating employees and screaming at them in a great book by Charles Ferguson called "High Stakes, No Prisoners". It's a wonderful accounting of building a startup in web 1.0 internet and selling it to MS -- Ferguson started Vermeer which built Frontpage. See also, for example, Ballmer screaming and throwing…
on “Carol Bartz: Yahoo "f---ed me over"” ↗I agree. Those emails/PDFs released in the DOJ case very enlightening and proved a lot of what Charles Ferguson was talking about in his books, "Computer Wars", "High Stakes, No Prisoners". MSFT was even afraid of AOL, Oracle, and others teaming up to offer a home appliance (eg. a net PC) at low prices and undercutting the PC industry. Of course, those partnerships and alliances never…
on “Why did Microsoft create C#? Wasn't Java good enough in the 1990s?” ↗1. PG's essays/ Hackers and Painters 2. Founders at Work 3. High Stakes, No Prisoners : A Winner's Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars The other way to look at it is, if you are not making mistakes, you are not pushing the boundary enough!
on “Ask HN: Quick. . . What's the best book on entrepreneurship you've ever read?” ↗I'm surprised Jerry Kaplan's book isn't on this list. It's called "Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure." I'm also enjoying "High Stakes, No Prisoners," by Charles Ferguson, who invented FrontPage.
on “Best Business Books” ↗I can't recommend "High Stakes, No Prisoners: A Winner's Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars" by Charles Ferguson highly enough. He basically had the idea for the internet then, after Netscape launched just as he was creating a startup,…
on “Ask HN: Favorite true story tech book?” ↗High Stakes, No Prisoners : A Winner's Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars The story about making and selling Frontpage to Microsoft for ~$130 million. Skip the last 3 chapters or so, where he rants boringly.
on “Ask HN: Inspirational Books” ↗You Can Negotiate Anything, by Herb Cohen Riches Among the Ruins, by Robert P. Smith High Stakes, No Prisoners, by Charles H. Ferguson Power Schmoozing, by Terri Mandell The Best Seller, by Forbes D. Ley If you're selling to restaurants, read books or attend trade shows aimed at restaurant owners and managers.
on “Ask HN: How to find a co-founder that would help you sell your product?” ↗'High Stakes, No Prisoners' by Charles Ferguson is very good on the early 90s and the dawn of the web. Ferguson was a government technology policy analyst who realized very early -- around 1990 -- that the web was going to be…
on “Ask HN: What are some good books on SV / Tech industry history?” ↗I highly recommend Charles Ferguson's "Computer Wars" on this topic, as well as his other book (about startups and the early Web), "High Stakes, No Prisoners."
on “How the IBM PC Won, Then Lost, the Personal Computer Market” ↗…shareholder in a company and the founder screws you on the exit. This does happen. It can be perfectly legal. There's an illuminating and apropos anecdote about Steve Jobs and Pixar in Charles Ferguson's High Stakes, No Prisoners that I haven't seen printed elsewhere that might even be true. Do you ever invest in one of his ventures again? The idea that the investor is at fault if he gets hoodwinked is logic of the con man though:…
on “One painful meeting with Steve Jobs” ↗…showrunner, Charles Ferguson was the founder of Vermeer which created FrontPage, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ferguson_(filmmaker) He also wrote one of the best startup failure-and-recovery books, "High Stakes, No Prisoners", https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2719001
on “The Eleven Laws of Showrunning [pdf]” ↗One of the best things about FrontPage is the book that Charles Ferguson wrote about starting it, building it, and selling it to Microsoft: High Stakes, No Prisoners: A Winner's Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars.
on “Thnickels” ↗We need more knowledge sharing on the topic of negotiating with VCs. Charles Ferguson's book was good, followed by the Venture Hacks blog from AngelList, https://www.amazon.com/High-Stakes-No-Prisoners-Internet/dp/... What we have here is a rare thing - an unvarnished account by an insider of what it took to make a deal with the VC sharks during the dawn of the Internet Age and come out of it with…
on “MentraOS – open-source Smart glasses OS” ↗…innovative (at the time) product made by a company called Vermeer. There is a truly fascinating, and even inspiring, book about the company and the sale of FrontPage to Microsoft: https://www.amazon.com/High-Stakes-No-Prisoners-Internet/dp/...
on “Franklin's bad ads for Apple ][ clones and the beloved impersonator they depict” ↗