Sebastian Mallaby

A NEW YORK TIMES & SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERExtraordinary... beautifully written, clear-eyed and engaged in the deepest ethical questions of our day Rory StewartMallaby has done full justice to his kaleidoscopically interesting subject ... expertly structured and vividly reported, the book presents the most insightful portrait of Hassabis to dateFinancial TimesA revelatory portrait of the visionary behind Google DeepMind, the race to control the future and what it means to winEven in a tech world crowded with visionary leaders, Demis Hassabis is recognized as a special case. Born to working class, immigrant parents in North London, a chess prodigy by five and wizard coder in his teens, he turned down a seven-figure job offer from a video-game studio to study science at Cambridge. Long before the current obsession with AI, he founded the path-breaking company DeepMind in order to pursue a single, audacious goal: the dream of artificial superintelligence, which would solve humanitys hardest problems, change life and work as we know it, and perhaps even unlock the deepest mysteries of the Universe. For his scientific achievements, he won a Nobel Prize in 2024, and his company, now Google DeepMind, is considered the tech giants engine room. For the past three years, Sebastian Mallaby has had unprecedented access to Hassabis and DeepMind, conducting hundreds of hours of interviews with him and his inner circle as well as detractors and rivals at other companies. The result is a revelation-packed portrait of a singular mind and a historic reckoning with the AI revolution, a shift potentially more significant than any since the dawn of complex thought 70,000 years ago. As Mallaby chronicles, DeepMind is locked in an arms race with Silicon Valley competitors to build artificial general intelligence, and thereby become the keeper of humanitys future. Yet this is not a Silicon Valley story. Hassabis has remained in Britain, and unlike his rivals, his aims are not wealth and power but scientific enlightenment. Like them, however, he is haunted by the memory of Robert Oppenheimer, the creator of the atom bomb. He aims to control the technology, but the technology may ultimately control him and humanity writ large.

Shortlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year"A gripping fly-on-the-wall story of the rise of this unique and important industry based on extensive interviews with some of the most successful venture capitalists." - Daniel Rasmussen, Wall Street Journal"A must-read for anyone seeking to understand modern-day Silicon Valley and even our economy writ large." -Bethany McLean, The Washington PostA rare and unsettling look inside a subculture of unparalleled influence." --Jane MayerA classic...A book of exceptional reporting, analysis and storytelling." --Charles DuhiggFrom the New York Times bestselling author of More Money Than God comes the astonishingly frank and intimate story of Silicon Valley's dominant venture-capital firms--and how their strategies and fates have shaped the path of innovation and the global economyInnovations rarely come from "experts." Elon Musk was not an "electric car person" before he started Tesla. When it comes to improbable innovations, a legendary tech VC told Sebastian Mallaby, the future cannot be predicted, it can only be discovered. It is the nature of the venture-capital game that most attempts at discovery fail, but a very few succeed at such a scale that they more than make up for everything else. That extreme ratio of success and failure is the power law that drives the VC business, all of Silicon Valley, the wider tech sector, and, by extension, the world.In The Power Law, Sebastian Mallaby has parlayed unprecedented access to the most celebrated venture capitalists of all time--the key figures at Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, Accel, Benchmark, and Andreessen Horowitz, as well as Chinese partnerships such as Qiming and Capital Today--into a riveting blend of storytelling and analysis that unfurls the history of tech incubation, in the Valley and ultimately worldwide. We learn the unvarnished truth, often for the first time, about some of the most iconic triumphs and infamous disasters in Valley history, from the comedy of errors at the birth of Apple to the avalanche of venture money that fostered hubris at WeWork and Uber.VCs' relentless search for grand slams brews an obsession with the ideal of the lone entrepreneur-genius, and companies seen as potential "unicorns" are given intoxicating amounts of power, with sometimes disastrous results. On a more systemic level, the need to make outsized bets on unproven talent reinforces bias, with women and minorities still represented at woefully low levels. This does not just have social justice implications: as Mallaby relates, China's homegrown VC sector, having learned at the Valley's feet, is exploding and now has more women VC luminaries than America has ever had. Still, Silicon Valley VC remains the top incubator of business innovation anywhere--it is not where ideas come from so much as where they go to become the products and companies that create the future. By taking us so deeply into the VCs' game, The Power Law helps us think about our own future through their eyes.

Basándose en el inicio de las carreras de los empresarios más aventurados de todos los tiempos, el historiador financiero Sebastian Mallaby nos explicará en este libro cómo se fundaron las compañías mas exitosas del mundo como Google o Alibaba, y cuales son las probabilidades de exito.A partir de historias e investigaciones, El poder del instinto nos enseñara la aleatoriedad del exito en el capital de riesgo, una industria que depende mas de las agallas que del analisis de datos, y como esta proporcion de triunfo y fracaso es la ley del poder que determina la economia de todo el mundo.Gracias a este practico manual, aprenderemos la verdad sin tapujos sobre algunos de los triunfos y desastres mas iconicos de la industria para entender que el futuro no se puede predecir, sino que tiene que ser descubierto.

Never has the World Banks relief work been more important than in the last nine years, when crises as huge as AIDS and the emergence of terrorist sanctuaries have threatened the prosperity of billions. This journalistic masterpiece by Washington Post columnist Sebastian Mallaby charts those controversial years at the Bank under the leadership of James Wolfensohnthe unstoppable power broker whose daring efforts to enlarge the planets wealth in an age of globalization and terror were matched only by the force of his polarizing personality. Based on unprecedented access to its subject, this captivating tour through the messy reality of global development is that rare triumphan emblematic story through which a gifted author has channeled the spirit of the age.This edition features a new afterword by the author that analyzes the appointment of Paul Wolfowitz as Wolfensohns successor at the World bank

Exceptional . . . Deeply researched and elegantly written . . . As a description of the politics and pressures under which modern independent central banking has to operate, the book is incomparable. Financial TimesThe definitive biography of the most important economic statesman of our time, from the bestselling author of The Power Law and More Money Than God Sebastian Mallabys magisterial biography of Alan Greenspan, the product of over five years of research based on untrammeled access to his subject and his closest professional and personal intimates, brings into vivid focus the mysterious point where the government and the economy meet. To understand Greenspans story is to see the economic and political landscape of our timeand the presidency from Reagan to George W. Bushin a whole new light. As the most influential economic statesman of his age, Greenspan spent a lifetime grappling with a momentous shift: the transformation of finance from the fixed and regulated system of the post-war era to the free-for-all of the past quarter century. The story of Greenspan is also the story of the making of modern finance, for good and for ill. Greenspans life is a quintessential American success story: raised by a single mother in the Jewish emigre community of Washington Heights, he was a math prodigy who found a niche as a stats-crunching consultant. A master at explaining the economic weather to captains of industry, he translated that skill into advising Richard Nixon in his 1968 campaign. This led to a perch on the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and then to a dazzling array of business and government roles, from which the path to the Fed was relatively clear. A fire-breathing libertarian and disciple of Ayn Rand in his youth who once called the Feds creation a historic mistake, Mallaby shows how Greenspan reinvented himself as a pragmatist once in power. In his analysis, and in his core mission of keeping inflation in check, he was a maestro indeed, and hailed as such. At his retirement in 2006, he was lauded as the ages necessary man, the veritable God in the machine, the global economys avatar. His memoirs sold for record sums to publishers around the world. But then came 2008. Mallabys story lands with both feet on the great crash which did so much to damage Alan Greenspans reputation. Mallaby argues that the conventional wisdom is off base: Greenspan wasnt a naive ideologue who believed greater regulation was unnecessary. He had pressed for greater regulation of some key areas of finance over the years, and had gotten nowhere. To argue that he didnt know the risks in irrational markets is to miss the point. He knew more than almost anyone; the question is why he didnt act, and whether anyone else could or would have. A close reading of Greenspans life provides fascinating answers to these questions, answers whose lessons we would do well to heed. Because perhaps Mallabys greatest lesson is that economic statesmanship, like political statesmanship, is the art of the possible. The Man Who Knew is a searching reckoning with what exactly comprised the art, and the possible, in the career of Alan Greenspan.

The New York Times bestsellerThe bright light shed by More Money Than God is particularly welcome. Mr. Mallaby . . . brings a keen sense of financial theory to his subject and a vivid narrative style. Wall Street JournalSplendid . . . the definitive history of the hedge fund history, a compelling narrative full of larger-than-life characters and dramatic tales of their financial triumphs and reversals. The Washington PostThe first authoritative history of hedge funds-from their rebel beginnings to their role in defining the future of finance, from the author of The Power LawWealthy, powerful, and potentially dangerous, hedge fund moguls have become the It Boys of twenty-first-century capitalism. Beating the market was long thought to be impossible, but hedge funds cracked its mysteries and made fortunes in the process. Drawing on his unprecedented access to the industry, esteemed financial writer Sebastian Mallaby tells the inside story of the hedge funds, from their origins in the 1960s to their role in the financial crisis of 2007 to 2009and explains why understanding the history of hedge funds is key to predicting the future of finance.

From an award-winning financial historian comes the gripping, character-driven story of venture capital and the world it made. innovations rarely come from experts. jeff bezos was not a bookseller; elon musk was not in the auto industry. when it comes to innovation, a legendary venture capitalist told sebastian mallaby, the future cannot be predicted, it can only be discovered. most attempts at discovery fail, but a few succeed at such a scale that they more than make up for everything else. that extreme ratio of success and failure is the power law that drives venture capital, silicon valley, the tech sector, and, by extension, the world.. drawing on unprecedented access to the most celebrated venture capitalists of all time, award-winning financial historian sebastian mallaby tells the story of this strange tribe of financiers who have funded the worlds most successful companies, from google to spacex to alibaba. with a riveting blend of storytelling and analysis, the power law makes sense of the seeming randomness of success in venture capital, an industry that relies, for good and ill, on gut instinct and personality rather than spreadsheets and data. we learn the unvarnished truth about some of the most iconic triumphs and infamous disasters in the history of tech, from the comedy of errors that was the birth of apple to the venture funding that fostered hubris at wework and uber to the industrys notorious lack of women and ethnic minorities.. now the power law echoes around the world: it has transformed chinas digital economy beyond recognition, and london is one of the top cities for venture capital investment. by taking us so deeply into the vcs game, the power law helps us think about our own future through their eyes.

La verdadera historia tras las empresasáde capital de riesgo de Silicon Valley yácómo sus estrategias han dado forma aála innovación y la economía global.En estas páginas, Sebastian Mallaby nosáentrega un apasionante relato sobre comoase fundaron algunas de las compañias masaexitosas del mundo, a traves del analisisade grandes empresas de capital de riesgoacomo Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, Accel,aBenchmark y Andreessen Horowitz, oasociedades chinas como Qiming yaCapital Today.En una equilibrada combinacion deanarracion y analisis, Mallaby nos explicaacomo se gesto el desarrollo tecnologico enaSilicon Valley para conocer la verdad sobrealos exitos y fracasos mas emblematicos deafirmas como Apple, WeWork o Uber.Gracias a este libro entenderemos comoafuncionan las mentes de las personas detrasade las empresas de capital de riesgo y comoaesta informacion nos puede ayudar a veracon otros ojos nuestro propio futuro.