eBoys

Why it’s on the list: Randall Stross spent two years inside Benchmark during the dot-com boom, which makes it the closest thing to a primary source on how that partnership actually decided things — the reading assignment behind the question of whether a firm like Benchmark could be built today.

Details: Crown, 2000. 336 pages.

Connections

• Benchmark — the firm the book follows.
• Venture Capital — a period account of how the business worked before it industrialised.