The Monk And The Riddle: The Art Of Creating A Life While Making A Living

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... Read more

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, troubleshooter, 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 come across. 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." Less