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An Intimate Look at Zuckerberg and Other High-Tech Figures

August 8, 2008

A new book by businessweek.com columnist Sarah Lacy promises a behind-the-scenes look at the stories of several Web 2.0 entrepreneurs, including Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg ’06.

On some level, Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good delivers, New York Times reviewer Katie Hafner decides:

Her descriptions of their business meetings come complete with snatches of you-are-there dialogue, à la Bob Woodward. The reader also learns who wears boxers, who cuts his hair in a hip style and who shucked his nerd-wear in favor of jeans and Pumas.

(Also on Lacy’s list of poster boys for the new new media: PayPal founder Max Levchin; Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen; and Digg cofounder Kevin Rose.)

Hafner writes that Lacy’s “explanation of how venture capital works is instructive and clear, perhaps one of the best yet written for a general readership.”

But she also calls the book a “disjointed grab bag of gossip” and says, “The writing is, at best, informal…Then again, everything happens so quickly in Silicon Valley that perhaps there is no time to write a proper sentence.”