Sebastian Mallaby

Sebastian Mallaby is the author of The Power Law — Venture Capital & the Making of the New Future, a history of the venture-capital industry. Kyle read the book with active skepticism about the industry it documents — treating Mallaby’s account as a record to interrogate rather than endorse. Across the book Mallaby narrates the careers and arguments of figures including Tom Perkins, Vinod Khosla, Ben Horowitz, Peter Thiel, Bill Gurley, and Ho Nam, and surfaces Jason Fried’s contention that “venture capital kills more businesses than it helps.”

Context: Sebastian Mallaby is a British-American journalist and author, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former Economist and Washington Post writer, known for financial-history books including More Money Than God and The Man Who Knew (a biography of Alan Greenspan).

Where this appears

• The Power Law — Venture Capital & the Making of the New Future — author of the book; Kyle reads his VC history skeptically.