Inside Frank Quattrone's Money Machine

Nobody knew it at the time, but the apex of the Internet rocket ride came on the morning of Dec. 9, 1999. Executives of computer maker VA Linux Systems Inc. gathered at 6 a.m. in the trading offices of Credit Suisse First Boston (CSR ) on the 17th floor of a San Francisco skyscraper for the company's initial public offering. Among those assembled were Larry M. Augustin, the chief executive, and his friend Linus Torvalds, the inventor of the Linux operating system, who was dressed in his customary T-shirt and sandals. Their three toddlers scampered around underfoot while the adults watched in stunned silence as the stock price jumped from 30 a share to more than 200 within minutes. Augustin nudged Torvalds and whispered: "Did you ever think we'd be here?" At the end of trading, the company's shares were worth 239.25 apiece, up 697.5%, making it the best-ever first-day IPO performance.

The person they had to thank for this heady experience was Frank Quattrone, then head of CSFB's technology investment banking business. During more than two decades in Silicon Valley, the working-class kid from South Philadelphia had harnessed the forces of capital and innovation to create a money machine that showered the Valley with fabulous fortunes and helped drive productivity growth in the U.S. economy. Think of almost any household name in technology, from Amazon.com (AMZN ) Inc. to Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO ), and Quattrone's fingerprints were on it -- whether he helped the company raise venture capital, took it public, or advised its CEO on strategy.