Author Description

A software engineer accustomed to late-night coding binges in dark computer centers co-founds DTX in the early 1990s at the dawn of the tech boom. A decade later, just before that bubble inevitably bursts, he and his partners sell DTX to the highest bidder. Getting there, however, is a bumpy ride that bounces him from New Jersey to Scotland, India, Pleasure Island, and numerous points in between, teaching him more than tech: food and wine, movies and music, soccer and golf, dogs (real and imaginary), and a mangy parrot. More than anything else, he learns that business and friendship make a volatile mix when his best friend--his erstwhile high school crush--joins DTX, working with him and against him through a series of partnership disputes that threaten the suddenly successful start-up. As the company grows, the once timid back-room techie emerges as a leader. Meanwhile, his friendship is put through a series of tests. Looking back at an unconventional past, he agonizes over their business disputes and sublimated feelings--and ultimately fi nds a new path forward. Teddy Ursinus has bounced through the pinball machine of life from computer programmer and tech entrepreneur to sportswriter, bond trader, and music video producer. He is a New Jersey expat who crossed the river into Manhattan more than four decades ago and never left except to visit other locales, including Scotland, the Taj Mahal, and Pleasure Island. His spurious claim of having read The Mangy Parrot in the original Spanish has gone widely ignored.