Vulture Capital

August Riordan #2

by Mark Coggins

When venture capitalist Ted Valmont is belatedly informed that the chief scientist of NeuroStimix--a biotech firm in which he has invested--is missing, it's not just business, it's personal. Not only is the scientist an old school chum, but his disappearance jeopardizes the development of NeuroStimix's most important a device intended to aid spinal cord injury victims. Since Valmont's twin brother, Tim, was paralyzed in a college driving accident, finding the scientist and getting him back into harness is of utmost importance to both brothers. Valmont engages August Riordan to assist in the search and the men soon discover that the disappearance is part of a larger conspiracy to use NeuroStimix technology for perverse applications. Terrorism. Prostitution. Slave labor. These are just the beginning. And when a beautiful, mysterious young woman comes onto the scene, it's impossible to say whether the technology will provide the ultimate means to save them all or be the catalyst for torturous, self-inflicted deaths...

Genres: Fiction

305 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2002

About the author

Mark Coggins’ work has been nominated for the Shamus and the Barry crime fiction awards and selected for best of the year lists compiled by the San Francisco Chronicle, the Detroit Free Press and Amazon.com, among others. His novels Runoff and The Big Wake-Up won the Next Generation Indie Book Award and the Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) respectively, both in the crime fiction category.

Reviews

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 4 out of 5]

So you might wonder to yourself, how do venture capitalists make so much money?

”We take as much equity as we can get for the initial investment, we write ourselves favorable terms in the event of acquisition or bankruptcy, and we diluted the equity of the founders even further with additional rounds of financing--sometimes to the point where they actually have no remaining stake in the company.”

So I have had my own unpleasant experience with venture capitalism. In my case, we had a finance company come in to purchase the company I worked at, and basically they acquired/supplied the financing to enable some of the managers, including myself, to own a piece of the property with the eventual understanding that we would own the whole thing. Everything would have been fine. The venture capitalist would have skimmed off a healthy profit, and we would have eventually ended up with a profitable company that would pay for a healthy retirement. We, unfortunately, had a downturn in the economy at the wrong, critical time. The venture capitalist compounded the problem by elevating a person to CEO who was completely unqualified for the position, who alienated and ranoff the talent pool. (It was such a poor pick you would almost think it was done on purpose to insure a quick dissolution of the company.) The situation quickly spiralled out of control. The managers lost all they had invested, while the venture capitalist walked away with a hefty profit.

He wrote the terms to insure that he would be fine, no matter what happened. His risk, zero. Ours 100%. I understood the risk, but what I didn’t understand was the potential for undermining the company to allow the venture capitalist to pop the ripcord on his golden parachute sooner rather than having to wait until later. The lies came fast and furious as I continued to ask for clarification on what was really going on. I was a minority owner at 7% and found out very quickly that 7% is the same as having zero ownership.

So why would I want to read a mystery based around a venture/vulture capitalist investment? Well, first of all, even though I knew this was going to involve venture capitalism, this is listed as an August Riordan mystery, and I loved the first book in the series titled The Immortal Game. Riordan is a jazz playing, private eye, who navigates the underbelly of San Francisco, almost as well as he plays a measure of improv. Riordan doesn’t show up in Vulture Capital until about page 100. He is a minor character until the final few pages of the book. I was kind of amused at the feeling of being baited and switched, but that kind of goes with the whole theme of Vulture Capitalism.

Fortunately, I became caught up in the mystery of the disappearance of Warren Niebuhr, the Chief Technical Officer of NeuroStimix, a biotech firm that is working on technology that will allow people suffering from spinal cord injuries to gain mobility. The company is Ted Valmont’s baby. He has bought and broke up so many companies that he has sort of reached the point in his life where he has that Richard Gere (remember Edward) moment in Pretty Woman where he wants to stop buying companies to destroy them, but begin buying companies with the intention of building things. Ted is even more invested in NeuroStimix, beyond the financial gain or loss. His twin brother is paralized from a spinal cord injury, and NeuroStimix’s research is his brother’s best chance to walk again.

Ted soon discovers there are nefarious elements behind the disappearance of his CTO. Another group of investors want to appropriate the technology from NeuroStimix and turn it to other, more profitable, uses, such as prostitution, slave labor, and even terrorism. ”You see, Niebuhr has figured out a way to record and later replay the nerve impulses associated with movements in people who are not paralized. With the right filtering, he can even make records from one person and play them on another. For instance, if you wanted to teach a beginning golfer to swing as well as a pro, you could record the pro’s swing and then replay it on the student.”

Or let's say you wanted to teach someone to swing a hammer more efficiently and effectively to increase their productivity. More profit for the owner, but the same shit wage for the worker.

Think of all the work that would save people of means from having to actually put in the time to learn how to be good at something. So you wake up one morning and want to be a concert pianist, why go through all the pain of years and years of practice when someone else has already done that for you? Of course, without the work to achieve it, there would be no satisfaction in having the ability.

These are actually pretty scary application ideas for this technology, but of course, there are only so many people needing to walk again. The profit is in developing the technology to potentially entice every person on the planet with a large enough bank account to take advantage of the technology. Let’s just continue to make that divide between the have nots and the haves even larger.

This is certainly a critical look at the post dot.com world of Silicon Valley. The mystery is interesting, verging on the fantastical, but then one fiction writer’s vision in one decade becomes the reality of the next. Candy from Strangers is the next “August Riordan” which is focusing on the very real hazards of social media and how it is brings pervs and teenagers together in equally exploitative ways. Mark Coggins has proven to me that he is a thoughtful, compelling writer so I’m looking forward to getting his take on my nemesis/close acquaintance...social media.

I often wonder to myself what happened to all those expensive ergonomic chairs that were sitting in empty offices all across the Valley in the wake of the dot.com bust? I could really use one.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
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[Devlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Second book in August Riordan series is good, but not as good as the first (Immortal Game). My main gripe is: not enough Riordan. He's a secondary character here, taking a back seat to Ted Valmont. Valmont's interesting, but a bit of a douche. Why have a great character like Riordan sitting on the bench till midway in the story and then just popping up in a secondary role? The story's okay, it moves well even if it's damn preposterous at times. I'm still on board with the series, but there better be more Riordan in number 3.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This starts as a missing person case and ends up in a male fantasy/nightmare/superhero situation.

I don't know about the technology which is presented, or I would call this science fiction as well.

We have the focus on Ted Valmont initially, as he bridges his venture capital company with the fictional research and development company which he hopes will help his paraplegic brother. The head scientist and chief Technical officer has disappeared and Ted begins a search for him, reluctantly getting the assistance of August Riordan, a character from an earlier novel and the apparently indifferent law enforcement officers where he was last seen.

Of course Ted is rich and beautiful and magnet for the chicks and everyone wants to bed him.

Then when the confrontation with the bad guys happens, he and August are near death when they miraculously turn the tables.

I love the writing and the setting is familiar to me, but I do have a problem with characters who face these types of odds and win.

I borrowed a copy from the public library.

[Rogue Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 2002, recognized as a defining portrayal of the dark side of Silicon Valley featuring August Riordan, a jazz-loving, San Francisco investigator in the style of Hammett and Chandler. The writing is spare and clean with flashes of humor and familiar cultural icons. Coggins writes the classic hard-boiled, brought up-to-date with the bits and bytes of hacking, stolen software, web cams and dot.com booms and busts. There’s a great cast of characters who run the streets that Coggins describes & photographs so well.

[Jim Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant noir look at the dot-com boom. Well-written, although there's really no need for this to be Riordan novel - he serves as only a minor character. The technological McGuffin was a bit of a stretch, really felt way too science-fiction for this series, but Mr. Coggins writing is compelling enough that it does not get in the way of the story.

[David]

This is the second in the August Riodian series. The structure is that the main charater is a venture capitalist. August comes into the picture about half way through the book. I would call him the 2nd major character.

[Ralph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun to read about places that I remember from when we lived in Santa Clara.

The book is a little disappointing because it steps back from the protagonist, August Riordan, who doesn't even show up until about half-way through the book.

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I prefer the later novels where August Riordan becomes the main character. More jazz references and the stories are more plausible. This one's OK, tho.