Alpha Girls
The Women Upstarts Who Took on Silicon Valley's Male Culture and Made the Deals of a Lifetime
Released from Currency, an imprint within Penguin Random House LLC.
The untold story of pioneering women in Silicon Valley. Described as Hidden Figures meets The Social Network, Alpha Girls is a story of women who bucked the system and found ways to survive and thrive in the cutthroat, high-stakes, male dominated world of Silicon Valley. Alpha Girls is currently being made into a television series.
Theresia Guow
The overachieving daughter of Chinese immigrants who grew up in the working-class town of Middleport (flipping burgers at Burger King), is now America’s most successful female venture capitalist, with a net worth of over $500m. She landed deals and helped build game-changing companies, including Imperva, Facebook, Trulia, ForeScout, The Muse, and Birchbox, to name a few. She cofounded Aspect Ventures with Jennifer Fonstad, is a founding member of All Raise, and a member of Broadway Angels. She is a fellow at Brown University, vice chair of DonorsChoose.Org, a member of the Advisory Council for Stanford GSB, and a board member of One, cofounded by Bono.
Magdalena Yeşil
Came to the US from Turkey with forty-three dollars in cash and nine gold bracelets that her parents told her she could sell when she needed extra money. She earned electrical engineering and computer science degrees from Stanford, got her first job offer from Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, became an entrepreneur and early leader with Jeff Bezos in e-commerce, became a top venture capitalist, and was the first investor and board member of Salesforce.com. She is a cofounder of Broadway Angels, the all- women investing platform based in SF, and she recently founded her fourth startup.
MJ Elmore
Arrived in Silicon Valley from the Midwest in the late 1970s in an old Ford Pinto to work for a new company called Intel. She later graduated from Stanford Business School and landed a job with one of the founders of venture capital, Reid Dennis. She was one of the first women in the US to make it to investing partner at a major venture capital firm. She backed and helped build some of the early computer and networking companies, as well as the first public CRM (customer relationship management) company, Clarify. MJ is a member of All Raise, Broadway Angels, and is a fellow at the Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute.
Sonja Perkins
Was entrepreneurial as a child growing up in Charlottesville, VA. She graduated from Harvard and found her way to Silicon Valley. As the only woman VC at Menlo Ventures, she funded game-changing computer and communications companies, from McAfee (online security) and Hotmail to F5 Networks, Acme Packet, and many more. Along the way, she learned to shoot guns, sample whiskey, and compete with the guys. She is the cofounder of Broadway Angels and founder of the nonprofit Project Glimmer, which serves hundreds of thousands of at-risk girls each year.
In the news
Interview with Thuy Vu
Interview with Maria Bartiromo
Yahoo Finance Interview
Interview with Emily Chang
Modern Luxury Magazine
Reviews
Ashlee VanceNYT best-selling author, Elon Musk
"Alpha Girls is a revelatory, riveting journey into a part of Silicon Valley's history that has been overshadowed for far too long. Through vivid prose and artful story-telling, Julian Guthrie brings to life the nuanced tales of the struggles and successes of women in the technology industry. Surprise, delight, scandal and courage run throughout this book, which is an essential read for our times."
Ken AulettaAuthor and New Yorker media critic
"If Julian Guthrie spoke around a fire, no one would fall asleep. She is a mesmerizing storyteller, weaving the life stories of four dynamic women into a page-turning yarn. Readers are taken on a journey where we not just read of but feel the outrageous and often clueless male slights and insults, the double standards and blatant sexism endured by women in the blustery, male-dominated world of Silicon Valley. Yet rather than just leaving readers angry, Alpha Girls leaves you awed by their resilience, their professional feats. In the end, this is a stirring tale of triumph."
Po BronsonNYT best-selling author
"Alpha Girls is an extremely important addition to the literary canon of Silicon Valley. It's told not with a single broadside, nor any sweeping characterizations -- but rather, through the honest and specific stories of a handful of individual women, each their own, and beautifully done."
Sallie KrawcheckCEO and Co-Founder of Ellevest
"The women of Alpha Girls had to grow some thick skin to survive and succeed. And succeed they did. Alpha Girls will reshape how you look at women in finance. The story is a must read for women and girls interested in changing the world."
Reid HoffmanCo-founder of LinkedIn and investor at Greylock Partners
"Alpha Girls is the story of four women who entered the tech industry to follow their dreams and managed through hard work and creativity to make those dreams come true. I'm glad Julian has written this book; we need to continue to tell the success stories of women in tech."
Peter DiamandisAuthor, founder, XPRIZE
"If you read one book about women in business, Alpha Girls should be the one. Julian Guthrie has written another dazzler. It's a playbook for entrepreneurs, especially women, and a wakeup call for venture capitalists, for Silicon Valley, and for every industry where women are terribly underrepresented. This is the Hidden Figures of tech."
Adam FisherAuthor, Valley of Genius: The Uncensored History of Silicon Valley
"Julian Guthrie is the best author writing about Silicon Valley today, and Alpha Girls is the book that the world needs right now. It's the real story behind the largest legal creation of wealth in the history of the planet. If you are a woman who works, or simply work with women, Alpha Girls is essential reading."
Brian KeatingProfessor of Physics UC San Diego, author of Losing the Nobel Prize
"An intimate and addictive homage to the fearless female pioneers who made Silicon Valley blossom. Julian's vivid portrayals of once-hidden risk takers and mavericks will leave you heartbroken, hopeful, and hungering for more."
Caroline PaulAuthor of The Gutsy Girl
"Finally, it's here: a book about Silicon Valley as seen through the accomplishments of the powerful women who, against all odds, made their mark there. Alpha Girls offers an inside look at the true meaning of grit and drive and upends the myth that it is only men who create and build tech companies. For any young woman in search of a role model, or any young man too, Alpha Girls is a must read."
Cathy SchulmanPresident of Welle Entertainment, Academy Award winning producer, president emerita Women in Film
"Alpha Girls is about four women in a high-stakes, high-drama world. Each of these women's stories is gripping, treacherous, and heroic. They are being pulled out from behind the gender curtain and given their rightful place in contemporary history."