Investment Visionaries: A Roadmap to Wealth from the World's Greatest Money Managers

Financial adviser Tanous (Investment Gurus; The Wealth Question) insists that information technology and biotechnology are still the best ways to make a killing in the stock market. But to get in on the ground floor of the next Microsoft requires unusual foresight and daring--hence this collection of interviews with""visionary"" venture capitalists, money managers, scientists and sharp thinkers who hold forth on the shape of things to come, proffer investment advice and extol their favorite technology stocks. The prognostications are fairly pedestrian. Pundit Esther Dyson forecasts new digital forms of social snubbing, while geneticist William Haseltine imagines""atomic-scale"" technology that will someday let us""will"" cups of coffee into existence; but mainly the future holds a lot of new (but seldom revolutionary) drugs, wireless gadgetry and cellular phone systems. The visionaries rarely offer reader-friendly investment strategies. A few lay out detailed, sometimes fascinating analyses of companies and industries, but the research that goes into these is beyond the means of amateur investors (indeed, in the book's conclusion, Tanous's fiduciary responsibility kicks in and he cautions readers against stock-picking on their own). Mostly the visionary wisdom amounts to truisms like""marry good common sense with some creativity and foresight."" Readers will have to dig hard through the laxly edited interviews to come up with such advice, however, as the conversations are filled with breezy banter about mentors and cronies (""Oh I know Fred. He's the world's biggest workaholic""), early careers, pro-football aspirations and water-skiing injuries.