Silicon Sky: How One Small Start-Up Went Over the Top to Beat the Big Boys Into Satellite Heaven

A classic American tale of ingenuity and hard work, guts and glory For more than a decade some of the world's most powerful defense companies have raced to launch the first low-earth-orbit commercial satellites. The prize? An explosive global market for personal communications worth billions of dollars. Fresh out of Harvard Business School, David Thompson entered the fray with an insane idea: to build his own rockets, satellites, and a multi-million-dollar corporation that could go head to head against the big guys. The story of his electrifying grab for the heavens-huge start-up costs, mind-blowing technical obstacles, and dark tangos with investors-is told by acclaimed writer Gary Dorsey, who was there reporting from inside. Silicon Sky reads like fast-paced fiction, and traces the advent not just of a single company but of a quickly emerging technological industry. Silicon Sky: How One Small Start-Up Went Over the Top to Beat the Big Boys won the 1999 award for Distinguished Literary Contribution" from IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.).