About the Authors and Book
From The Starfish and the Spider
Born in Israel and raised in Texas, Ori Brafman has been a lifelong entrepreneur. Ori holds a BA in Peace and Conflict Studies from UC Berkeley and an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.
As an alumnus, Ori has facilitated an MBA course on interpersonal dynamics at the Stanford Business School.
When he was still in college, he co-founded Vegan Action, which successfully launched a network with thirty-six national and international chapters. He brought vegan foods into numerous college dining halls and won a trademark dispute with McDonald’s over the term McVegan.
Since then, Ori has led marketing campaigns for UC Berkeley’s Young Musicians Program, prevented fast food companies from advertising in schools, led marketing efforts for a healthy fast-food startup, and been a founding team member of Courtroom Connect, a courtroom technology company. Together with Rod, Ori co-founded Global Peace Networks, which catalyzed a network of CEOs working on conflict resolution and economic development in Africa and the Middle East.
He lives in San Francisco with his wife and two cats.
Rod Beckstrom grew up in Oklahoma and moved to California to attend Stanford, where he was student body president. Rod was a Fulbright Scholar and worked in London for two years as a derivatives trader for Morgan Stanley.
Rod attended business school at Stanford and started a risk management company on the side to help cover tuition. C*ATS software grew into a multinational NASDAQ-traded company.
Rod “retired” from his position as CEO in 1999, but has since served in leadership positions with Environmental Defense, the Young Presidents’ Organization, and several technology startups. He co-founded Global Peace Networks with Ori.
Through venture capital investments, Rod has been an early stage investor in such companies as eBay, Inktomi, Juniper Networks, and others. He also served on the board and helped to build American Legal Net, the leading provider of online court forms in the U.S.
Rod was a pioneer in the field of derivatives trading and risk management. He wrote the first article on the pricing of interest rate and currency swaps and wrote the first book on Value at Risk, a primary modern risk management theory.
Rod lives in Palo Alto with his wife and two children.
Other books by Rod
An Introduction to VAR, Rod Beckstrom and Alyce Campbell (eds.), CATS Software, Inc., Palo Alto, CA, 1995
Impetus for Writing
After the events of 9/11, we co-founded Global Peace Networks, a non-profit that engaged CEOs from around the world in conflict resolution and economic development projects. Small circles of CEOs worked in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Africa. There was no hierarchy or rigid structure. Rather, the circles worked independently on their own projects. Over time, we began seeing connections between this decentralized network and what was happening in virtually every industry.
The connections all around us were just too strong to ingnore--what did craigslist have in common with al Qaeda? How were Skype and the Apache Nation linked? What did Toyota, GE, and eBay have in common?
In May of 2004, we presented our ideas to a a group of 60 CEOs at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. The group loved the presentation and asked for more. They told us we had to write the book.
The Title
Our initial working title was "The Decentralized Revolution." We still love this title but it was just too abstract, not to mention a mouthful. "The Starfish and The Spider" on the other hand, is concrete, has meaning, and is easy to remember. The concept of using the starfish as an image for representing decentralized networks came from brilliant environmental scientist, Dr. Jane Lubchenco. We were having dinner with her and told her about our work and ideas. She encouraged us to study the starfish which has a completely decentralized nervous system.
The Starfish is a perfect metaphor for decentralized organizations. The spider, in turn, sort of looks like a starfish--it has a bunch of legs coming out from a centralized body. But the spider has a head--it's centralized. The contrast between these two animals is the basis for the title.
The Cover
The real book cover has a linckia starfish across it and an earlier draft had a circle of black chairs. The earlier version was recently submitted to Amazon.com, so if you saw that, it was not the real cover but merely one of the candidate designs.
