Endearing geek Paul English drives Tracy Kidder’s ‘Truck’
The subtitle of A Truck Full of Money (Random House, 251 pp., out of four), Tracy Kidder’s biographic tale of the inspirational life of maverick software pioneer and entrepreneur Paul English, is perplexing: One Man’s Quest to Recover from Great Success. Who wouldn’t sign up for that recovery program?
Co-founder of the travel website Kayak, English has made multiple-millions of dollars in the world of entrepreneurial geekdom, where deep-pocket venture capitalists turn to unconventional visionaries like him to gamble on the Next Big Thing — such as Facebook, Snapchat or Uber. While he is no household name like Gates or Zuckerberg, English’s life is inherently the fascinating story of the Internet boom and the beginnings of the online start-up culture.
Kidder’s wheelhouse is creative genius with practical outcomes — and that’s who English is. In the mid-1970s, English was an introverted boy in a large working-class Boston family when he stumbled upon a natural affinity — the budding digital revolution. Before kids his age knew what a computer was, he hacked into his Boston Latin School teacher’s machine. His mother bringing home a $299 Commodore PC was a gamechanger. Never mind his lousy grades, school brawls, pot selling, awkward social skills and high SATs. Résumé for entrepreneurial success, right? Before enrolling in UMass-Boston, he was already coding commercial computer programs and games.
After college, English discovered a brave new world where brainstorming misfits like him were in high demand. His programming talents led to high-level engineering jobs at Interleaf and Intuit. His innovative work- place approach led to mega-management opportunities. Soon, he was running companies; then creating them, making them successful and selling them for fortunes.
The book’s title? One of his colleagues early on said: “Someday this boy’s going to get hit by a truck full of money, and I’m going to be standing beside him.” He was, and more trucks keep coming. English’s latest start-up is the 24/7 liveagent travel app Lola, which he launched this spring.
But the subtitle? When Kayak sold for nearly $2 billion, English’s first thoughts were how to give most of the money away to good causes — to help homeless people in Boston and fund health care and education in Haiti. His “recovery from great success” also relates to the uplifting tale of how he adapted to a diagnosed bipolar disorder that has stoked his creative fires but also, at times, darkened his personal life.
For whatever reasons, Kidder shortchanges parts of English’s personal story, particularly his first marriage. But his robust reporting creates a powerful and insightful tale that makes the Internet era entertaining, and defines English as an endearing, generous and eccentric geek.