Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World Highlight

Sunny Balwani joined the web-auction start-up CommerceBid in 1999 and it sold to bankruptcy-bound Commerce One the same year for a couple of hundred million dollars’ worth of stock, of which Balwani was entitled to a substantial chunk.4 It was a very lucky series of events, but as the reporter John Carreyrou writes, “Sunny didn’t see himself as lucky. In his mind, he was a gifted businessman and the Commerce One windfall was a validation of his talent.”