The tradition of eccentric businessmen is indeed rich. In the 1920s, box-manufacturing tycoon Bob Hughes took infinite pleasure from standing outside Tiffany's in New York City and throwing a mayhem-inducing cache of fake jewels across the sidewalk; renowned publisher Joseph Pulitzer suffered from nervousness so acute that he spent his last 20 years in soundproof rooms; and the definitive oddball entrepreneur—Howard Hughes—was not seen in public over the last 26 years of his life.

Measured against these 20th century figures, the wireless communications pioneer Craig McCaw would be considered unremarkable. Measured against his peers—entrepreneurs and CEOs for the 21st century—the reclusive and beneficent Mr. McCaw is a singular creature.

While Craig McCaw's contemporaries believe in the inherent good of technology, define themselves by what they do (or, worse yet, by how much they own), and approach business as a no-holds-barred grapple with the competition, Mr. McCaw's approach is more cerebral. He speaks of the inherent risks of technology, of striking a balance between life and work, and of the morality required to do business. In a time when successful businessmen rank as celebrities and the lives of celebrities reside in the public domain, when his peers surround themselves with public relations machines and welcome adoration, Mr. McCaw eschews practically all publicity.

Though he has succeeded somewhat in preserving his anonymity, the parts of Mr. McCaw's personal history that have been revealed are the stuff of Victorian literature (or made-for-TV movies): After the McCaw clan loses its family fortune, the young Viscount McCaw (on TV, Craig, played perhaps by Jason Priestly) restores his family's riches, and ultimately uses his fortune for the betterment of the serfs in his fiefdom (on TV, to pay for his mother's liver transplant surgery). He is a communications pioneer who has amassed a fortune of billions despite being dyslexic. His story is desperately worth telling.

Roads to Nowhere
The writer returns to his ancestral home and finds it is disappearing.

Fish Stories
Louisiana's fishermen won’t bite on technology unless they know the nets are going to bulge.

KillTheDot.com:
An Update
San Francisco’s dot-com dissidents go global and send the media into a frenzy.

The Virtual Revolution
When anarchists flock to the Web to organize, chaos reigns.

Dateline
Shanghai's Internet entrepreneurs expose us to the elegant seediness of the Long Bar.

Through a lens
People use cameras to answer a question. CEOs ponder what life is really like at a start-up.