Something Ventured

When mainframes, desktops, floppies, and game consoles made their initial appearances, who put up the money? The unsexy-sounding topic of venture capital is explored in Dan Geller's Something Ventured, which is less a Wall Street story than a computer-age saga made colorful by gossipy anecdotes and great retro-future footage taken from old industrial movies and nostalgic B2B promos highlighting the leaps in technical progress and culture (viewers of a certain age may shed a tear or two when Pong makes its debut). The protagonists are a set of maverick high-rolling investors known as the "Traitorous Eight," whose work behind the silicon curtain underwrote microchip and tech giants like Tandem Computers, Atari, Apple, Microsoft, Genentech, and more. Not surprisingly, problems arose when the pragmatic financiers tried to impose no-nonsense business models and practices on eccentric, casual, and uncooperative innovators (Cisco Systems' co-founder, Sandy Lerner—who was ousted from the company—is interviewed at length). Not every investment succeeded: witness the motorcycle-to-snowmobile conversion kit, which functioned fine but just never caught on. While capitalism-bashing may be presently fashionable, this is an upbeat saga of the underpinnings of the computer revolution's success. DVD extras include deleted scenes. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)