The practice site was a large government-owned stretch of desert with an elevation equivalent to the area surrounding Abbottabad.

NEWYORKER: Getting Bin Laden

Some early moves hurt the firm, including investments in Forbes.com and Palm. (Elevation ultimately came out ahead on Palm, Mr. McNamee says.) More recently, Elevation scored with bets on Yelp (the business-reviews site went public in March) and Facebook.

WSJ: The Tech Investor Is With the Band: Roger McNamee and Moonalice