Monk and the Riddle: The Education of a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur (Harvard Business School press tip sheet)

by Randy Komisar (Author), Kent Lineback (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2000

  $3.72

  This book describes how one Silicon Valley insider has blazed a path of professional - and personal - success playing the game by his own rules. Silicon Valley is filled with garage-to-riches stories and hot young entrepreneurs with big ideas. Yet even in this place where the exceptional is common, Randy Komisar is a breed apart. Currently a Virtual CEO who provides leadership on demand for several renowned companies, Komisar was recently described by the Washington Post as a combined professional mentor, minister without portfolio, in-your-face investor, trouble-shooter and door opener. But even more interesting than what he does is how - and why - he does it. Komisar has found a way to turn an ambitious and challenging work life into his life's work. The Monk and the Riddle is unlike any other business book you've read. Transcending the typical leadership book model of lists and frameworks on how to succeed in business, The Monk and the Riddle is instead a lively and humorous narrative about the education of a unique Valley insider. It unfolds over the course of an ongoing dialogue between Komisar and would-be entrepreneurs, Lenny and Allison, and is at once a portal into the inner workings of Silicon Valley - from how startups get launched to how venture capitalists do their deals to how plans get prepared and pitched - and a deeply personal account of how one mover and shaker found fulfillment, not in work's rewards but in work itself.As the narrative follows Komisar through meetings with venture capitalists and eager entrepreneurs, and as his conversations with Lenny evolve toward a resolution, The Monk and the Riddle imparts invaluable lessons about the differences between leadership and management and passion and drive, and about the meaning of professional and personal success. When all is said and done, writes Komisar, the journey is the reward.

• New

  Paperback
  2001

  $23.25

  What would you be willing to do for the rest of your life...? It's a question most of us consider only hypothetically-opting instead to do what we have to do to earn a living. But in the critically acclaimed bestseller The Monk and the Riddle , entrepreneurial sage Randy Komisar asks us to answer it for real. The book's timeless advice - to make work pay not just in cash, but in experience, satisfaction, and joy - will be embraced by anyone who wants success to come not just from what they do, but from who they are.At once a fictional tale of Komisar's encounters with a would-be entrepreneur and a personal account of how Komisar found meaning not in work's rewards but in work itself, the book illustrates what's wrong with the mainstream thinking that we should sacrifice our lives to make a living. Described by Fortune.com as part personal essay, part fictional narrative and part meditation on the nature of work and life, The Monk and the Riddle is essential reading on the art of creating a life while making a living. 'Belongs in a category by itself...The best thing I've read all year' - San Francisco Examiner . 'A timely book' - USA Today . 'A self-help manual and business fable rolled into one' - The Times, London .