The book opens with a turf war between two computer design groups within Data General Corporation, a minicomputer vendor in the 1970s.

Their project, code-named "Fountainhead", is to give Data General a machine to compete with the VAX computer from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), which is starting to take over the new 32-bit minicomputer market.

Meanwhile, at the corporate headquarters at Westborough, Massachusetts, the few remaining senior designers there are assigned the much more humble job of improving Data General's existing products.

Code-named "Eagle", it becomes a backup plan in case Fountainhead fails, and then the company's only hope in catching up with DEC.

Tom West practices the "Mushroom Theory of Management" – "keeping them in the dark, feeding them shit, and watch them grow."