The main story on the cover of Saturday's Wall Street Journal is
the stuff of a romance thriller, stuff that not even James Frey could
make up: at age 73, a multimillionaire venture capitalist publishes his
first novel with a few push-button words in the title--"sex" and
"zillionaire"-- and is encouraged by two friends, one the
multimillionaire--maybe even billionaire--owner of a publishing
company, and the other the venture capitalist's ex-wife, herself the multimillionaire author of
nearly 70 romance novels.
Here's the "truth." The author is Tom Perkins, a founder of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (which, among many other ventures, backed Amazon.com before it went public). The book is Sex and the Single Zillionaire (Regan Books, $24.95, 0060851678), which comes out February 1. The friend: Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. owns HarperCollins. The ex-wife: Danielle Steel, who urged Perkins to flesh out, as it were, his idea of a zillionaire starring in a Bachelor-like reality show.
Here's the "truth." The author is Tom Perkins, a founder of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (which, among many other ventures, backed Amazon.com before it went public). The book is Sex and the Single Zillionaire (Regan Books, $24.95, 0060851678), which comes out February 1. The friend: Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. owns HarperCollins. The ex-wife: Danielle Steel, who urged Perkins to flesh out, as it were, his idea of a zillionaire starring in a Bachelor-like reality show.