Silicon Valley has been around only for about sixty years, so it’s still in its historical infancy. The history that has been written so far tends to romanticize the past, focus on the “geeks” who struck it rich, or relegate the Valley to trivia. For example, you probably have heard about David Packard’s legendary Palo Alto garage, known as the “birthplace of Silicon Valley.” Most certainly you have read about Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Jerry Yang, and the other high-tech billionaires. You may even know that the late Stanford University professor Fred Terman is the answer to the trivia question, “Who is the father of Silicon Valley?”

However, history is a collection of remembrances, and none of the existing writings accurately represent my Silicon Valley experience. I think this is due in part to the writers’ motivation for recording the Valley’s history in the first place. Some scribes have been zealous journalists in search of a career-making scoop. They sensationalized reality. Others were industry insiders who wrote to proliferate their ideas, expound their technology, or promote their company. They edited reality. And finally, some have been disenfranchised columnists who never worked for a high-technology company. Their purpose has been to denigrate the world’s epicenter of wealth creation. They never truly experienced the reality of Silicon Valley.

My reasons for writing The Real Story of Informix Software and Phil White do not fall into any of these categories. First, I wrote this book to explain the incredible events surrounding the rise and fall of what was once a great company. Second, I wanted to record a unique chapter in Silicon Valley history between 1991 and 1997--the period after the technology recession of the late 1980s and before the Internet boom shifted into high gear in the latter half of the 1990s. Third, this book is a remembrance of a time when Silicon Valley mattered. We worked there with the hopes and dreams of making our marks on the world during a time frame that can be best described as California’s second gold rush. While the environment was challenging and success was never guaranteed, back then we felt we had a fair chance of striking the “mother lode.” We felt that we were taking part in history, not merely trying to survive and make a living like today. Finally and most importantly, history repeats itself. For the past five years, the Valley has experienced a malaise, and many of the business and sales strategies that enabled Informix to survive and succeed in similarly tough times and a hypercompetitive market are directly applicable today.