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The Worst Of Times
I've read one-too-many tech boom-to-bust sob stories lately and now I have the urge to just summarize them all as follows:
I got my ticket on the tech boom gravy train back in 1997 when a stranger I had shared a taxi with pitched me a leading technical position at his new start-up company, Yellow River. The next day I was interviewing for the job in his top-floor mid-town office suite overlooking the Bay. I was asked who invented the dumbwaiter (luckily I knew it was Thomas Jefferson) and how to best move a flock of sheep between two moving icebergs, and before I could answer I was hired.
Rick, our CEO, and his college drinking buddies had a revolutionary idea that was going to change the world. All they needed was more investors, 300 programmers, 200 administrative staffers, a mile of warehousing space, a fleet of private jets, and a few international trade treaties to be rewritten. Our software afterall would forever change the way people adjust the brightness and contrast of their computer screens. I was an area of computing that was wide open and untouched: the monitor, the screen itself. People adjust brightness and contrast on their screens all the time manually pushing big old fashioned buttons and twisting knobs and dials, and they have to be in front of the monitor to do it. This is where Rick saw the opportunity: Why not let people adjust their screen settings from anywhere in the world over the web? At the time we could barely comprehend how profound of a concept that was, and I was excited to be part of it.
In no time we had investors beating down our office door. Because of our tight non-disclosure agreements we couldn't even explain to our investors what exactly we were working on, we could only tell them it was going to be "big and yellow." Thus the project code name "Big Yellow" which we later had to hire lawyers to wrestle that trademark away from the Yellow Pages, but it was worth the battle because we liked the color yellow, it meant something to us, and for our investors it was all they had from us so far.
I was charged with hiring our entire technical staff of programmers, tech support reps, internal support, networking, and field technicians. Although I didn't see the harm in it at the time I immeditaely hired all of my friends from the local role-players' gaming club to fill out the top technical positions in the company. Some of them had actual computer experience and others were just really cool people to hang out with. We worked long hours together, only it didn't feel like work because we turned our management process into a role-playing game, another revolutionary idea that we were very proud of.
The trouble started when we missed our first ship date. Little did we realize it at the time but most computer monitors settings can not be controlled through software, a major setback. It also didn't help that most of my staff had been put on the "Bigger and Bright Yellow" project which Rick's cousin Nell was personally managing. Soon there were a clash of personalities and unexpected failures in our role-playing-modeled management process. Investors were also starting to demand some kind of description of what our product was supposed to do and our lawyers couldn't hold them back much longer. After Rick came back from his new time-share in the Italian Riveria, we had the talk I was dreading all along. I was being replaced. Rick's brother-in-law Jed had just been certified to repair PCs and other electronic devices and now his wife wanted Rick to make Jed as our new CTO. Jed was a smart kid in his own way, but he clearly did not know anything about role-playing games. That made it difficult for us to respect him as our boss.
But we worked hard and the money didn't mean anything to us. As long as my stock options were still worth more than $20 million, and my salary was twice the market rate, the money didn't mean anything. These were the fun times. Our office was a playpen of ideas and creativity, we had really smart people and free soda, as much as you could drink all day and night.
By 1999 it was all over. None of us saw it coming. Our executives were dragged out of the office in handcuffs; apparently the investors decided to play dirty and called the FBI on us. I couldn't believe they would accuse us of fraud -- we had a product, we just hadn't finished thinking about how to make it yet. The saddest part came when I had to fire my friends. They felt betrayed, the week before we were shopping for luxury yachts and now they were wondering how they would make rent next month. All I had left from my years at Porkius was the twelve-sided die we used to cast our most important executive decisions.
Still I am ambivalent about the outcome. After all, I have learned some valuable lessons: never trust guys named Rick -- Rick is an asshole, Rick lied to me; never trust investors; hire only the friends who play the same games you do; and wait until the computer monitor market matures before stepping back out there.
There's a GLUT of unemployed IT workers now. Are companies still pressuring congress to increase the number of H1B visa's each year? Why?
I can do that in 4 lines of Erlang, 3 lines of Tcl, 2 lines of perl, or 1 line of Python if you have the right libraries installed. On Windows, MS's security settings make it impossible except by a VBA that sends email to a buffer overrun in Back Office that does it with a few registry settings, except you have to re-boot if you want to use the keyboard.
In A.D. 2001 ....
Shakeout was beginning.
CEO: What happen?
CFO: Somebody set up us the bankrupt
CTO: We get signal
CEO: What !
CTO: CNN fN turn on
CTO: It's You !!
Greenspan: How are you gentlemen !!
Greenspan: All your options are belong to us
Greenspan: You are on the way to destruction
CEO: What you say !!
Greenspan: You have no chance to survive make your time
Greenspan: HA HA HA HA
CEO: Take off every 'account'
CEO: You know what you doing
CEO: Move 'account'
CEO: For great justice
Luckily you caught her in time and smacked her around, so that she understands that her single role in life is to be a provider for you.
(If you're kidding, so am I; if you're trolling, so am I; if you're serious, so am I.)
Of course, I'm biased, but I think it's interesting. I wanted to post it to A) give some meaning to 18 months of personal hell, and B) allow for the discussion and study of failure. I spent a little time pursuing an MBA, and nobody ever studied failure.
Those immune to failure, feel free to criticize the story, my business and my struggles with it.
I couldn't help but get the feeling, though, that this is an elaborate plot to get us to forward this to all of our friends to prepare the market for intelligent monitors that can be used for copy-protection of content.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
Didn't the proposed product tip you off just a little bit? Software that allows you to adjust the brightness and contrast of your monitor over the internet? Even most of the dot-coms that failed at least were _going_ to produce something with a slight bit of use.
Hey, there were dotcoms that allowed you to deliver dog shit to your enemies' houses. After that...
Starmedia?
A "proven leader"... at the age of 20-something??? I agree that there are plenty of bright, motivated, and even highly responsible/moral people in that age range, but I'd have a hard time believing they've had enough years under their belt to be considered "proven leaders".
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Your Servant, B. Baggins
In all the world there is no opportunity for people to manage via Role-Playing - why the fuck not? I think there should be.
I think the quick and simple answer would be "because how could it work?". But that's just me.
If you mean your question to be less literal - well, there are certainly seminars whereby management roleplays workers, etc, to get a better feel for what actually goes on. I think the spoof article meant they roleplayed managing in something like AD&D, though.
My humour filters may be broken, however.
Hey, on our Northern Telecom system you can remotely adjust any phone's LCD display contrast from another phone, once you get into the system programming menu.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
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I think this story is a hoax.
What a stupid idea to set a monitor via the web. For what reason will you want to set it, when you are not in front of it?
Sure, some monitors have software control (Apple), but you only will want to set them when you are sitting in front.
I have never heared or read about such a company or product.
The irony in the article seems a bit to much too, smells like an urban legend to me.
-- bmp System Support - Vienna, Austria
... was helped along by basing hiring on silly little quizes like how to move a flock of sheep between two moving icebergs. Unless that's what the business does or the candiate claims to have experience in that area what benefit does that question really have to the interviewer? The company doesn't have people on staff that know squat about producing products but they sure know the answers to those trivia questions!
Oh, sure, there's something about them that shows that a candidate can think on their feet but, personally, I could care less about these arcane and, IMHO, useless questions. I'm beginning to think that most of them are asked merely to place the interviewer in a superior position so that the candidate won't be in a position to bargain effectively. Or it could be that the interviewer is so unsure of their own skills that they have to toss one of these questions out so they can feel like they know more than the candidate (there's that superiority thing again). Next time you get one of these questions, just remember: That's why your new boss is making the big bucks; he knows how to move a flock of sheep between moving icebergs.
Just remember: Before you go to your next interview, be sure and research the company, rehearse your little spiel about your work history, and, for god's sake, don't forget to memorize the Interviewer's Big Book of Stupid Interview Questions (coming soon to a bookstore near you!).
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CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Me, too. Another Rick has owed me $0.75 since the second grade! Hey maybe it's the same one! (Once a dead-beat, always...)
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CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
See that foot? It's funny, laugh.
I really, really, hope that I'm not missing out on some serious meta- meta- meta- levels of sarcasm here.
pooptruck
But it hass a passing resemblence to this Salon.com article:
i fice/index.html
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/05/02/sacr
Oh? Hmm. I have a can't-miss investment opportunity for you. There's this thing called a bridge -- 'scuse me, I mean it's called an eBridge. I'm looking for a limited number of backers for a plan to build an eBridge across the East River, from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Cash only, in small bills, please.
I think we've touched a nerve 8^)
If you can't laugh at pain, especially stupid, self-inflicted pain, then what can you laugh at?
-- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
Oh, I don't know. We voted him in so I consider the W self-inflicted pain. 8^)
-- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
Why would anyone want Clippy to pop up while you're working on something? Stupidness abounds. Wanting to adjust a screen that you can't see, isn't relatively stupid.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I was an area of computing that was wide open and untouched
Was he really hairy? Did he not shower? Wear really cheap cologne? There had to be a reason why he was untouched. Not 100% sure what he meant by wide-open. He can't be the goatse.cx guy, because he's DEFINITELY been touched.
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
If it were a little more creative.
Unfortunately, all of us were making identical jokes before the bust. The jokes were funny then. Now it's just tired. And a little offensive because real people are hurt.
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There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Why, so people can properly moderate your post?
Note the foot icon next to the story. That signifies HUMOR in Slashdot. It's a joke.
In the end, a lot of the dot-comians forgot a few simple rules:
I have mixed sympathies for victims of the dot-com crashes. Sure, some were niave, some were truly concerned, many were energetic. But far too many ignored simple, basic economics.
Im a consultant, happily working for a branch of the company that studiously avoided getting involved in dot-coms. A lot of our competitors have fallen by the wayside, but we're steaming along.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
I don't know man, sell a free OS?
That's pretty damn absurd.
LOL
don't ever interview for a job in Santa Cruz then...
even the 50 year olds are "some skateboarder looking reject who thinks its hip to interview me with a little dog running around the office"
LOL
adjusting monitor color via the web? hopefully i put some fuckedcompany points on you.
-- ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space!
"Why not let people adjust their screen settings from anywhere in the world over the web?"
Second paragraph. This is the sentance that I thought was DAMN funny. It should also be a sign to anyone smart enought to consider themselves a geek that this is a fake story. Think about it for a second. Why would you need to adjust your screen settings remotely? If someone else is there looking at it, then they can adjust it. If nobody is looking at the screen, then why adjust it? How are you going to adjust a screen that you can't see? It's completely absurd.
Yeah, there are some absurd dot com business plans out there, but not this absurd.
-B
Taco and Co. - Check your lameness filter code. It's jacked up.
You still owe me money Rick!!!
realkiwi
Are you the Rick that owes me money????????????
realkiwi
Is he the one that owes me money??????????
realkiwi
> Now if anyone who doesn't believe me wants to
:)
...).
:)
> invest in my plan to turn the volume up on your > computer from the internet, email me the money.
In fact that you can already do
There is a plugin for winamp (calld winamp remote i think) that allows you to turn up the volume of your PC over TCP/IP (as well as changing tracks
Rather handy for messing with your colleague's minds
LNUX isn't totally worthless.
Yet.
Nor will you see Larry being led away in handcuffs any time soon. They need the cell space for someone else.
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--
E_NOSIG
That's okay--looks like at least three moderators read as carelessly as you did.
Are you using the streamsicle?
The problem with the tech boom of the late 90's was that people didn't buckly down and release useless products, they took their sweet time about it.
If people would just get off their asses, and get those terrible websites out a bit faster then they can go out of business with much more authority and confidence, versus this current crop of companies who can't even handle their bankruptcies emotionally.
These lessons have been learned by the current crop of startups, and they have become tightly focused on synergies around expenditures. Meaning, they will blow money at a faster rate, and bring products to a market that doesn't want them that much faster.
Get ready for the new, really new, economy!
Dude, you've got the gift! I'd definitely like to hire you to pitch my new dot-com idea to the VCs.
What about Rick Moranis, eh?
I'm Peggy.
I agree, its a joke. The sad thing, however, is that this could have actually happened. How many of these dot-coms were founded by an idea thought up during a drinking binge, for a product that was completely unnessary and in many cases extremely difficult to implement. How many of these products were funded by VC firms with little more than blind faith, then crashed and burned before even getting out of the vaporware phase. How many companies had executives that were hauled off in handcuffs? This story may only be satire, but the true ironic humor to be found here is that this story could be passed off as true and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised. Thats sad.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Yes, people were foolish. But just like everyone was all hyped up about dot-coms and e-commerce and new economy, people are also now all hyped up about the failure of these. It's *all* out of proportion.
Do you have any idea how many car makers have existed? Over 15000! How many exist now? 20? 30? Does that mean that cars aren't one of the most revolutionary inventions ever or that it's a bad business idea? Should we laugh at Ford, Honda and Audi?
What's idiotic is getting into extremes, using terms like "e-revolution", "new economy", "cyberspace" etc. Just because something is revolutionary doesn't mean we have to use it in every single aspect of our lives. After all, we still drive on "roads" - as opposed to "automobile space".
It's easy to make fun of it all now, when we know how it all turned out. But just because boo.com went bankrupt and just because Nasdaq was/is about 10x overvalued doesn't mean that we're not talking about a revolution - it is a revolution for sure. I consider it revolutionary enough that I can read my email on the subway, that I can buy movie tickets with a cell phone from a café using a web / wap browser etc. There's no need to hype it, but there's also no need to ridicule it.
i worked for a dot com for a year and had the best fun i ever had. did i quit b4 it went bust ? hell yes. did i learn anything ? yup. did i get another job in a stable company ? yup again. the dot com revloution was really fun if you kept your head above the hype and amused yourself. i went to more trade shows, hired and fired people, earned a decent salary and made the best friends ever..all while working in an insane dot com driven industry.
A few of us have gotten bits of the linux kernal running on the n64. All we needed was an i/o device to the real world :-(
Failing that you can melt the sheep however I have not been able to reconstitute liquid sheep as yet.
Please be aware that in the UK you must add a generouse slosh of disinfectant to either the sheep or the icebergs while liquid to prevent contamination by foot and mouth disease.
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
= You have been marked for pyschological cleansing. =
= Please sit tight while we remove all free will. =
= You will be a much happier, more productive worker then. =
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
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+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Truly you were ahead of your time. Every iMac made uses software to control its monitor settings (as do Apple's flat-panel screens). If only you could have held out another year, the installed base might have grown enough to show your investors a potential market.... alas, now we will never know. :-]
--
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
That is too funny!
nice job, I needed a humor injection this AM...
we turned our management process into a role-playing game, another revolutionary idea that we were very proud of.
Actually, I don't think this is such a bad idea.... I mean, compare it to some "real" management techniques....
Anyone ever seen the movie boiler room? The story was funny and somewhat similar, but whats scary is, it happens in the real world although its rare when tech based, however whats ironic IMHO is that most VC firms who invested in companies that went under for lack of having products never attempted to seek injuctions against those companies. Also noteworthy to me is the mentioning of hiring friends, and lack of management due to age constraints.
I worked at a content provider like Yahoo that catered to Latin America, except 90% of the staff weren't Latin (get worse). Well no one was ever allowed input during weekly meetings (where much money was spent on catering) into what the company should look to for future revenue, or methods to cut costs (e.g. option for cheaper servers, etc.) not because no one had a clue, but because management between the departments were mostly 20 something'ers.
I remember a few people had ordered (no bullshit) Sun E450's for personal mp3 storage servers, the company brought just about everyone top of the line IBM Thinkpads, Motorola i1000 pagers, Nextel phones, you name it they brought it.
Now the management team used to all work together in prior companies, some were college buddies, and when they had disagreements with each other, they would act out like brats who didn't get their way and disrupt the company by not allowing needed change, not because it was or wasn't good, but simply because they didn't like each other. Weird place I ended up leaving after about 6 months.
I barely trust companies where management is some skateboarder looking reject who thinks its hip to interview me with a little dog running around the office. Sure one would like to go to their jobs and enjoy the environment they work in, but management (although most times are hated) is a very important part of any company, and not many 20something'ers have that edge yet in my opinion, mind you I'm in my upper 20's.
Want Root?
Once I became successful and my services had a little demand, I was suddenly surrounded by people who where telling me to raise my rates and grow my business. When I asked why, they said, "Because you can." I figured I was fine where I was, so I stayed put.
Now, most of them are out of business and I'm still going strong. Sure, I'm growing, just not exponentially like all of the generic three-letter companies around here.
- Milo Hyson
I don't think he's entirely serious dear...
;-)
...Student, Artist, Techie - Geek *
Hell, I've been in places like this. Of the three places I've been in the last two years or so, one is very dead, and the other is barely hanging on?
Now, I'm not saying I personally had any impact on their downfall
Mong.
*
*...Slacker, Artist, Techie - Geek *
Remember: Nothing is Cool.
um, it's a joke (or, more precisely, a satire). Joe
never trust guys named Rick -- Rick is an asshole, Rick lied to me
My father's name is Rick..
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arcane for life
Do it and find out... :-)
-- You have moved your mouse. Windows will now reboot.
Now if anyone who doesn't believe me wants to invest in my plan to turn the volume up on your computer from the internet, email me the money.
d00d, do you have PayPal? I am SO there!
Conclusion: IT'S A PARODY!
Sheesh!
And the brethren went away edified.
Why get completely out if you knew it was coming? You should have short sold the dot coms and made a bundle.
My investments were in a 401(k), not in hand-picked stocks. The 401(k) offered numerous investment vehicles (various stock funds, REITs, bonds, etc.). I had about 50% of my money divided among 2 or 3 stock funds; in February, I transferred all that money out of stocks and into other investments w/in the 401(k).
As it was, I spent a month wondering if I had been overly concerns (since tech stocks kept going up until mid-March). ..bruce..
Bruce F. Webster (brucefwebster.com)
Perhaps the most amusing/saddening aspect of the dot.com crash is that so many Slashdot posters would read the story above and think it was real. As many others have pointed out, the real stories aren't all that different (and some are worse).
Though it's easy to say (and hard to prove), I saw the dot.com crash coming. (One piece of evidence: I got out of the stock market completely in February of 2000.) I've been involved in two different startups and have helped bring half a dozen commercial software products to market. I know how tough and unforgiving the market can be, even with good intentions, a decent product, and competent management. Been there, done that, wrote a book about it.
Here, by contrast, were these dot.coms blowing through more venture capital in a month than the last startup I was with used in five years, with no product, no business plan, and no experience in winning and maintaining a customer base. Even under normal circumstance, two out of three VC investments fold--and the VCs still make money, lots of it. The dot.com mania suckered both entreprenuers and investors; the resulting death rate is more like nine out of ten, and many VC firms are hurting in a way they never have before.
I'm not thrilled about the subsequent crash, since it's having an impact all over the economy. My own employer is 'retrenching'; since my current practice isn't sufficiently profitable for their needs, I'm going to be 'spinning off' to run it as an independent. I'll do fine. It's not the first time I've been through this, and it's not the first time that we've been through a tech-related boom-and-bust cycle. But I was hoping to build up a pension over the next dozen years or so. Now I have to do it the hard way, while paying my own employment tax, benefits, legal and accounting services, infrastructure, etc.
I _am_ amused by how every time the stock market rallies a bit, commentators jump in to speculate whether things are going to turn upwards again. To borrow an earlier poster's phrase, I fear we are going scrape along the bottom for some time. I'd love to be wrong about that, but I fear the worse (in the tech sector and possibly in the economy) may stil be yet to come. ..bruce..
Bruce F. Webster (brucefwebster.com)
Oh. Oh, dear.
"Never mind..." -- Emily Litella
I think this is funnier if you have read this slahsdot post, and this article.
--TyAnd I am suing you!!!!
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Life grinds on in the technology based startup world. There's less capital to make it happen and we keep stuggling to meet deadlines and ship product. Some companies had real value 18 months ago, some still do. Sure it'd be nice to be shopping for the yacht now, but as the rest of the startup world burns, it's nice to have work and keep pluggin'.
I watched from the sidelines during the boom. I watched options traders start companies with no management experience save their connections with wealth. I watched naive programmers' fortunes rise and fall with the market. I know a number of millionaires from the boom, I know a number of guys left nearly penniless. Technology marches on.
It would be funnier if, at the end, all of the guys DIED horrible deaths. And their families too! And their DOGS! OH GOD I *HATE* DOT-COM GUYS DOGS! BLEAARRGHH!!!
:P
I mean, WTF? The absolute GLEE in the crash of dot-coms is kind of sickening. People are out of work. Real people - not just a few asshole biz school drop-outs* who could use Front Page.
G.H.
* - those jerks deserve it.
Just wait till some crappy band steals your nic.
During one of my parttime contract weekends the current CTO disappeared, just left. Took a company phone, laptop, keys. No word. My friend was left holding the bag and turned to me to fill in. I still wasn't sure about the job but this was a very close friend, someone I trusted and they needed me. I couldn't let them down just on principle. I reworked everything the former CTO had done, (much of the network had been setup rather sloppily so I had to redo it), and kept everything on track. Still, I was uneasy so I agreed to come on board fulltime for 6 months, to get the company started, but that was it. I might stay longer after that but could not guarantee it. This way, I could feel satisfied with myself that I wasn't leaving my friend in a bind while at the same time not living with the regret that I had let a good opportunity pass me by.
After relocating myself to the area and working fulltime for a couple of weeks, I still hadn't been signed on as a fulltime employee. I was living off of my own savings for a bit of time. I was just going to rent a car but went ahead and bought a new car at my friend's urging as they wanted to wrap the company logo on it promising that the company would buy the car from me once I left. I finally received a pay check so I felt more secure about the situation and continued to trust my friend and take them at their word, especially after they agreed to sit down with me the next day to get everything settled and in writing as I had been requesting since day one.
By the end of the month, there was very little in writing, my friend always had meetings or was too busy to meet, and a new business plan was being written. The entire mission and product goals of the company were being changed, including my job description. I was suddenly "promoted" to CTO which meant "do everything tecnical to make it all happen, whatever it happens to be." Of course, I'm not qualified to be a CTO and barely qualified to be an IT Director which is what I was doing on contract, still not a fulltime employee.
I was pulled into VC meetings to answer technical questions about a new business plan with which I wasn't familiar which made me uncomfortable. My staff was anxious. I started to hear rumors about why the former CTO had left, how my friend had been changing the direction of the company at will in order to get VC money and was fixated on making $20 million dollars. When I questioned my friend about anything, I was accused of being naive and/or disloyal followed by how comforted they were that I was there to help them, how they couldn't do it without me.
I then realized that my friend had no idea as to what they were doing. They seemed to have a junkie addiction, only concerned with money and making lots of it and would tell anyone anything if it would help them get it. I resigned from my contract and told my friend that it wasn't going to work out. The company and job had not turned out be what it had been presented to me as and I didn't like being baited and switched. My friend felt bad and we agreed on a compensation package for all the time and money I had spent to accommodate the company. We split on good terms. That happened last summer 2000.
Currently, "my friend" is no longer my friend. Promise after promise that was made to me was broken time and time again. I still have not been paid all that was owed to me and am only now getting out of the debt I incurred from helping my former friend. In spite of it, I am still doing okay. My former friend's company is, of course, not going to make it. Many people have left or been layed off and my former friend is being sued. I am relieved that I got out when I did and don't want to have anything to do with my former friend ever again.
I don't regret taking a gamble by working for a dot-com. I should have paid closer attention to the inconsistencies but the biggest error in judgment I made was trusting a close friend who took advantage of my faith in them. I will never make that mistake in business again. I've learned my lesson.
- tokengeekgrrl
"The new wave is not value-added; it's garbage-subtracted" - Esther Dyson, Dec 1994
"The new wave is not value-added; it's garbage-subtracted" - Esther Dyson, Dec 1994
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Jesus Christ, tell me it is not true... you're talkin' 'bout ... what?? WISDOM?!?
Are you *INSANE* or what????
cheers
rmstar
Can you hear it? That's the collective ignorant outcry of a hundred thousand geeks who can make a Linux box fly but can't recognize satire when they read it.
This is not a real dot-com people...It's half tongue-in-cheek, half satire. You must chill.
Now if anyone who doesn't believe me wants to invest in my plan to turn the volume up on your computer from the internet, email me the money.
RB
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ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
Yes, it's a joke. That's why it says "It's Funny. Laugh" under the subject ;-)
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
This was so close to what happened in some cases, no one could tell that it was a fake story...
Didn't the proposed product tip you off just a little bit? Software that allows you to adjust the brightness and contrast of your monitor over the internet? Even most of the dot-coms that failed at least were _going_ to produce something with a slight bit of use.
Of what use would this product possibly be? How would adjusting the brightness/contrast of your monitor across the internet help anyone? If it were a remote monitor, you could not even see the results, and if you were in front of the monitor, who would want to install software to allow them to adjust these settings?
Every part of the story was an exaggeration to the extreme. Many dot-coms may have been run stupidly and inconsistently, but I don't know of any that would have matched the extremeness of any of the examples in the story.
It was a damn funny story though.
DogDoo.com has ALWAYS been profitable, ever since our inception in June of 1999! When other huge web sites like Amazon.com still remain in the red we have turned profits each and every month.
It's not hard to see that a company that ships dog crap would be profitable. There's a few reasons for this:
Even if only a few people order, they are already making money. A single order from any of the "sizes" of dog crap will pay for the food for the dog for a month or more. It's $25 plus shipping for 2 lbs of feces. That's more than steak.
Pretty much the only other raw materials, besides poop is the shrink wrap and boxes for sending the stuff in. Dogdoo.com is actually providing a service that some people want. Granted it is probably a niche market, but some people are buying it. I cannot see anyone wanting control of their monitor from anywhere in the world.
i have a 'normal', 'boring', 'REAL' job, and my dot-com friends get to take turns living in my guest room while they look for a 'REAL' job since their 'fun' job vanished. which my wife loves, let me tell you... oh well. one down, about four to go. only took the first guy a month... so maybe i'll get my life back by september.
The REAL sam_at_caveman_dot_org is user ID 13833.
that though it's a joke, it's still a pretty realistic story ...
In the beginning of the "bubble", I think it was equal parts shoddy research and bad management. I don't think software design had much to do with it. It certainly varied from company to company but I bet it all averaged out.
.com that was going to change the way the construction industry exchanged information and purchased materials. Now, given enough time, money (in conjunction with a low burn rate) and a dogged persistence it would have doubtless worked out. The problem was that they needed the industry to change NOW in order to meet their sales goals/revenue targets. Needless to say it didn't work out - they found from their reporting that even when contractors signed up for the system, they didn't use it. This could have (likely) been overcome in the long-run as the subscriber base reached a critical mass but one year (or less) just isn't enough time for this type of thing.
For instance, my wife worked for a
of almost every .com I've heard of that was created and died during the .com goldrush. My wife was there for 2 of 'em and when I heard her spouting this shit for the second time around, I was forced to smack her around a bit -
her: "well, we're REAL close to getting funding"
me: "are you going to get a paycheck this month"
her: "if we get funding"
me: "call the temp place tomorrow and find a temp position immediately."
her: "but we're close, we'll probably get a sheet by the end of the week"
me: "yeah, we're close too....close to having to live in a fucking box on the street corner unless you get a paycheck"
Needless to say, the paycheck never came....
This was a very good peice of satire.. and not far off from the actual truth on the market. Most companies did very little research if an idea was marketable.. For example, my previous job was working for a company called InterAct Accessories, (GameShark.com, interact-acc.com).. I worked on many projects that were just not researched.. My boss at the time's outlook was, "If its internet enabled or does something on the internet, it will sell millions." And thus a product called SharkWire was born. SharkWire was a modem for your Nintendo 64 that allowed you to get Gaming information straight from Sharkwire.com for only 9.95$ a month! The best part you ask? You can't browse anywhere else on the Web, and Sharkwire.com was always down! I know, I know first thing I said was where can I sign up to get one of these devices... Well instead of even just testing the water before investing a lot of money, they put approximately 2 million into it, produced 80,000 units, setup a huge sharkwire.com hosting deal with Genuity (approximately 90,000 a month for Solaris machines, Radius servers, mail, etc..), then released the product LATE.. Missing its target date before christmas.. But alas, it was the technology era, it would sell anyway right? Well InterAct sold approximately 500 units over a period of 5 months.. of those only 100 actually called to subscribe to the service.. The rest were eventually returned.. Needless to say after about 8 months the project was shut down... with still 80,000 of these units in a warehouse.. Fortunately I wasn't directly involved with this particular project, but my job was eliminated anyway thanks to the huge loss involved..
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
We get the stuff about the photographs of pre-revolutionary Russia, one of the most interesting stories seen in a long time on /. Then we get this drivel.
Special Relativity: The person in the other queue thinks yours is moving faster.
--
J, Pixel Pimp
Very funny :) .com ideas that unfeasible? Why were they unfeasible? In University I learned programming techniques the first two years and then had feasibility studies driven into my head in 3rd and 4th years. Was half the problem with startups that they were run by people who perhaps didn't have the expertise to design software properly? I'd be curious to hear what other people think.
The thing I noticed was how unfeasible the idea was. Were most real
Like sex? Read and write about it! Indecent Blogging
WTF is it with Slashdot's hostility towards the very web community it caters to? Over the weekend we were being encouraged to laugh at the unemployed in this econonomic downturn (Oh, look at the stupid yupee getting his car Repo'ed!. Laugh. It's funny!). Now we have a satire that pretends to be the template for all start-ups in e-commerce. Maybe your hoping it's just Windows users getting fired out there, but it's your Linux buddies too.
If Andover decided to trim some fat and the staff of Slashdot was laid off should we laugh at that too? Or maybe it's just funny when it's the other guy. Assholes.
This same thing happend to me, although not a parody, there were some similarities.
I was just starting in my career, had passed my CCNA, my RHCE, and I thought I knew it all. I met some guy who was looking for someone with Cisco and Red Hat Linux experience and I thought, "Hey, I really fit that bill!!!" I interviewed with the guy at a local restaurant.(my first hint should have been that I never actually was able to see the office space they had) He asked me what experience I had with Linux to which I naturally responded, "Well, I have my RHCE." Which was similar to the response I had when asked about my Cisco experience.
He sounded all excited and wanted to hire me starting me at a salary that was double what I was already making. I bet you could see the dollar signs in my eyes. He was going to call me in a week and make an offer. A week passed, then two. I called him, and he responded with "Well, I am meeting with some Venture Capital companies this week..." This went on for about a month. In the meantime, the company I was working for was looking to make cut-backs. They had found out somehow that I had interviewed elsewhere and figured I wasn't a team player any longer and I was chosen as one of ten to be let go.
Oh well, things turned out for the best, but that's how a young, naive person could get caught in the dot-com hype. Lesson learned.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Pardon me for mentioning something basic, but maybe the reason why no one's throwing money around at stuff that "does not participate in the world in an *Economically* significant way", but I sure wouldn't spend my hard-earned money on some idea that makes 2% of the tech-workers happier, and has almost no chance of making any kind of a return. If your ideas are so much better than the ones that are out now, eventually they'll become a reality. But seeing as how I don't have money coming out of my arse (pardon my French, s'il vous plait), I can't ever see myself throwing money at something like that. I don't mean to attack you or anything, but all of us aren't sleazy, rich venture capital associates. We have to pay for food, rent and families. If they're hungry, who cares what some guys in a cubicle 200 miles away care about their work environment.
http://www.jetmailing.com/marketing/
OMG, I cant believe these loosers actually have the guts to put this BS on thier web site!
Many of these dot com ideas are thought up by the same people who run the marketing departments into the early hours of the morning. Control screen brightness and contrast through the internet?!? Why not a device to light all you candles at home from the internet. And a device to call the fire department from the internet. Sure there are some good ideas out there, but it is the poor excuses for dot com ideas like this one that have forced such scepticism on dot coms.
Not fair. I thought that I was the first to patent this. Looks like a mess-up at the patents office. You will be hearing from my lawyer!
And most of the slashdotters are far to young to know who the fuck "Ike" was, or which commedian I stole that comparison from. (It was Steve Martin, talking about how stale jokes about Nixon had become in 1977. You young whippersnappers may not know it, but his stand-up acts were once popular enough to sell out football stadiums. Crap, do I ever feel old now... Pardon me while I climb onto a drifting iceburg and float out to sea...)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I sense "Ah... I can score points off someone, but only if I reply to them without attempting to understand their post". - Dimwit.
nal 11
Twenty-something managers definitely deserve a lot of blame, but to be honest, good managers of any kind are hard to find.
I was involved in a dot-com startup. We raised 4.5 million in the first round. We decided to hire a 40-something CEO, figuring that he very successfully ran a multi-thousand person corporation that went public, so he must have done something right.
What a disappointment. The biggest problem was that he was extremely intimidated by "the New Economy" and bought into every dot-com cliche you could imagine. Spend money as fast possible. It doesn't matter what you do as long as you grow. I was the CTO, and tried to bring some sanity to the process, but was overruled. I eventually left the company.
Later, they raised another $15 million. The guy hired to replace me was, quite frankly, one of the stupidest, most irritating people I have ever met. However, he could butt kiss like you wouldn't believe. He would spew techno-babble that would never fail to impress my "grayhair" CEO. Eventually, only an uprising by the programmers got rid of him (they threatened to walk out, en masse, if they didn't get rid of him). One catty comment: the ugliness of his personality was exceeded only by the ugliness of his appearance. He was truly offensive in every possible way. There aren't many people that I truly hate (even people that have screwed me in the past), but this guy I truly despised.
Anyway, the irony is that it really was a great idea, but it would take careful execution to make it happen.
There were SO many other stupid things they did. Long term office space lease (although, they at least didn't get the most expensive they could get). HUGE Oracle/Exodus contract that was 10 times more power than what they needed. On and on.
This was late 1999. They have pissed away 17 million of the 19.5 million they raised in about 2 years. They finally fired the CEO. However, the VCs hired another guy for, I believe, $350K/year. My partner (who was still there at the time) absolutely hated the guy, and thought he was completely useless. My partner was fired.
My lessons? NEVER use other people's money. You very, very rarely need it. Trust your instincts. Be frugal, and slow steady growth wins the race.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
That's what I get for posting about five minutes before the morning caffiene kicks in.
[shrug]
Foot in mouth tastes good on monday morning. Now all I got to do is learn to whistle.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
notion of an alternative - democratic, even socialist - economy
Agreed. Solidarity, friend.
Where are all these fantasy stories of "mismanaged" dot-coms coming from? Why is it so vogue now to ridicule dot-coms?
When the Internet exploded - it caused massive cultural change. The kind of things Katz is famous for ranting about *are* possibilities, broad flat publishing, heightened communication, empowerment in various ways, re-invigorating communities of all kinds - DO and DID occur because of the Internet. The Internet has been the single greatest Cultural Revolution to happen in the last 15-20 years.
But its success is something very unique - it did not translate into massive, powerful profitable businesses? Why? Because not everything that is culturally significant is economically significant. So when VCs flocked to the Internet (a whopping 4-8 years ago) they expected to become rich by riding the economic saddle of this explosion. Well that did not happen. The Internet is proving to be a very hostile to their economics.
So - what is my point? It is a sad commentary that we will ridicule and malign what is a significant cultural event. I understand that trying to run a 'business' as is described in the article is a funny. What is very funny (in the Strange sense not the "ha ha" sense) is that there is no mechanism or ability for people to participate in our world in this way. In all the world there is no opportunity for people to manage via Role-Playing - why the fuck not? I think there should be.
Every day millions of us goto our places of work and participate in the inhuman charade that robs us of our Life. Most of us probably would rather being doing something Else with our time. It is truly sad that there are NO OPPORUNITIES in the world to do something different. Why does everything in the world need to participate in the un-reality that is the business world. For a very short time people were equipped and empowered to build something they found interesting. Allot people will downplay the Katz description of the Internet as being insignificant - while i agree it is not the most important thing in existence - it is profound and exciting in many ways.
It is really troubling to think of the other 'significant' things that humanity could enjoy, what strange and different ideas could be explored - in a large way - that may prove to be significant in our lives - but *ARENT* pursued or built or conceived or developed or explained or discussed or shared or whatever simply because it does not participate in the world in an *Economically* significant way.
Where is humanity going? What are goals? Is it to consume and work and conceive of nothing else if it doesn't work in our broken 'economic' reality?
This is a very difficult thing to express - im ranting a bit (and definitely running on) but I hope everyone 'gets my point'. Most will read this as a simple anit-capitalist tie-raid(sp?) - which pragmatically it is - I mean it to be a whole lot more than that.
Well geee, I don't know, considering the intelligence of an industry that makes a computer motherboard that can crash so bad that the on/off power button doesn't work. You know, an industry losing sight of the most basic concept of computers, being an on/off switch, that works.
3 S.E.A.S - Virtual Interaction Configuration (VIC) - VISION OF VISIONS!
Regardless of the humor, there is the fact that there had to be investors before there could be a dot com fall.
Does anyone here really know what happened that caused such massive funds to become available?
Well here is a bit I saw on PBS a few nights ago. The 1990's was a decade where some investors thought they had
figured out the stock market math. They found enough big investors to help create a 1.5 trillion dollar gamble.
Cept in the mid second half of the 90s, all the math turned sour and it was serious enough that it put the 1.5
Trillion in US dollar equivelance at risk. The US government stepped in with some 3 billion (or better) of
taxpayer money to bail the investment firm out.
But before the math turned bad, alot of money was made.
So you might say it was a miscalculation, bad math that seeded the bad investments in dot coms.
.
3 S.E.A.S - Virtual Interaction Configuration (VIC) - VISION OF VISIONS!
This is the kind of thing that happens when investors don't do their research and just jump on any band wagon they can get a hold of. When the market was on it's way up, people saw a bunch of companies making millions or billions every year, and greed took over. If people are losing money, it's because investors are jumping into an idea that they have only just been told about by the people who are asking for the money. Maybe every investor should hire a techy :)
I have no signature
Here's an mp3 from the interview on which the oft mentioned salon article sprouts from:
http://media.salon.com/mp3s/saltech050701.mp3
!-- begin cut & paste from salon's page --
The programmer's lament: How one overworked, underpaid coder lost his health, his sanity and his faith in the dot-com dream. David Wadler is the author of Coder on the Cross. With music by Aphex Twin. Original interview by Amy Standen.
One clever .tragedy in salon was fun. One more in cnet, red herring, upside or nytimes.com was tolerable. And this was in January 2001.
For cryin' out loud, we are in May of 2001. And we are still laughing at these dot coms or shedding tears for them??? Havent we passed that point where parodies fail to amuse us and elegies fail to make us cry? /. should go back to talking about technology, rather than focusing on the business of technology coz its writers do *not* have the insight to write about management and business.
Yes, this makes me a petty person, and yes, I really want to feel bad for these folks who created snake-oil dreams -- but I don't. The people I do feel for are the workers -- the developers, office people, and general grunts who got caught up in this mess. Most of these folks -- including the programmers -- went to work in good faith, being promised the sky by crooks and false visionaries.
Yah know what's funny, though? Two years ago, people were urging me to join their dot-com dreams; I, instead, found myself a comfortable position with an unexciting company that works in the boring realm of document management. The work is quite challenging, but not very sexy -- and a lot of techy friends derided my choice.
Those same techies are now calling *me* to ask for a job.
Yeah, I've made my mistakes over the years, so I don't blame people for wanting to get rich on the dot-com boom. Perhaps the dot-com mess is a reflection of our society; I think the reasoning is similar to that of gamblers -- one more pull of the lever, one more roll of the dice, and I'll never be rich beyond the dreams of avarice...
--
Scott Robert Ladd
Master of Complexity
Destroyer of Order and Chaos
All about me
I don't know about ScumBiker, but I've got it running in here at work. I think we already have about 10 Gigs of MP3s on the server. There has to be at least 5 people listening in at any given moment in the workday. My only complaint is that there isn't some admin feature or something to skip a song. People have been request FAR too much U2 for my liking!
I already remotely crash her Outlook on demand and take up all of the office bandwidth by refreshing /. & downloading linux ISOs!!
Chyron: I REALLY did get it already. This was also a spoof...
LFS. Have you built your system today?
You would have heard the same baloney and gotten the same results if you had worked at any one of these big corps. during the same time frame.
Just because you close your eyes, the world doesn't go away.
You cannot start a business based on a device to light candles at home from the Internet. I already have software and business method patents on that concept.
But then, what about a system that stores your display preferences (brightness. contrast, resolution) and automatically applies them whenever you use a computer (cell phone, PDA, ATM, food replicator). It's a lousy business plan for a startup but it might not be such a crazy thing to fold into .NET (Hailstorm, SOAP, XML-RPC, that Sun thing the name of which I forget). I'm already expecting Slashdot coverage of the Dave Winer article where he complains that MS is doing it all the wrong way, instead of the right way, the Dave Winer way.
Now let's get back to news of real businesses, like making a file manager for Gnome, giving it away but expecting to make money from providing add-on services and then blowing all your $13 million in funding on buying press coverage so you run out of money months before you could possibly start generating revenue.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
I have to confess -- I read the story a couple of times before concluding it was a joke. Not because I can't recognize satire, or notice the humor icon on the story, but because there's little here that's obviously unrealistic.
The deranged business plan, the interview questions, the godawful management, executives landing in jail -- this sounds exactly like one of those sob-stories Salon is always running. Actually, if you combine Eazel and Ximian's business models, LinuxCare's management and the Red Hat and VA IPO's, you'd have a similar story.
Now, if the interview question had used goats instead of sheep, and the word "goat" had been linked, I'd have caught on quicker. ;-)
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
"Why not let people adjust their screen settings from anywhere in the world over the web? At the time we could barely comprehend how profound of a concept that was, and I was excited to be part of it."
I bet he was coding this for Windows. Since Mac OS's contrast/brightness/ColorSync settings are all done in software (and hardware) (for color calibration purposes), I'm willing to bet this could be coded for MacOS by one person in one day.
Does this mean I could be the next .com millionaire?
Burn Hollywood Burn
I don't think I was either. I did see the foot logo on the article, after all.... ;)
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
You assumed a position suggested by some stranger in a cab, and wonder how you got screwed? Sheesh....
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
> Racist! Open your borders completely or you're a racist!
That would be nationalist, nitwit. You're a little touchy about the racism thing. Isolationism isn't limited to the USA by any means, and the reasons for favoring local workers over imported workers are many and varied, which is why so many countries follow the practice in the first place. Try not to knee-jerk so severely next time.
Virg
> We are living with a generation of kids who have had
> everything handed to them their whole lives, and now that
> they are out in the workforce they expect to do something
> "fun" and get paid good jack for it.
Geez, again and again with the "being miserable builds character" discussion? Haven't you all died yet? You seem to be stuck on the concept of "those kids who don't know the real world" and "they're in for a rude awakening" and "in my day you had to work and work hard" and "having fun at work is for layabouts" and...and...and.... You never seem to grow tired of pointing out how hard you work (and have to work) to get ahead. Well, I'd pay good money to see the look on your face when you realize that you've spent your whole life working a job that isn't fun and you didn't have to do it. I wear jeans to work every day. I have hair down past my shoulders (I am male) and my boss doesn't care. What I do now for my bread is what I did as a hobby in my spare time for years. I love doing my job. The reason I get paid good jack is that I add value to the company, which was the reason they hired me and continue to pay me. Notice that I can do that, and still have lots of fun at work. The attitude that working can't be fun, and that fun jobs aren't worth doing, is wrong. It's well past time you let it go. As my grandfather told me when I was young (and he had learned this even back then), "life's too short to work a job that sucks."
Every generation accuses the next of being indolent little punks who wouldn't know good work if they fell over it, and I see no reason why your generation is any more right than your parents'.
Virg
Sally Struthers!
It doesn't have to be this way.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
This was SO a real company. This company made me a mint when I was day trading. I made $50k alone when they announced the product's name was "BIG YELLOW".
It's clear to me that they should have spent less time sitting around playing stupid "role-playing" games and instead they should have gone out and protected their IP space. Had they gone and gotten the appropriate patents (and believe me this idea would easily be patentable in today's climate), they would have much more than a product. They would have IP. That is so much more important than producing something. Now, by going out of business and by not having their patent portfolio up to date, someone can come along and code this idea up in a day or two. Even though they had to spend years doing expensive basic research to get to where they could produce a product. If they had done that, going out of business wouldn't be the end of it. Failing to produce any code wouldn't be the end of it. They could have licensed their IP for years to come and guaranteed themselves a nice income. Oh well, until those dotcom morons learn that protecting your IP comes first and making products comes second, they will continue to fail.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
My name is Dan Isaacs. I'm seeking a high-level management position, preferably managing the technical staff at a techonolgy company. While I have little experience dealing with programmers, I do have considerable experience managing a fast food resteraunt and a convenience store, as indicated in my attached resume. Additionally, I have passed my A+ Certification, so I obviously know a lot about technology. Combined, my experience and education make me the perfect candidate for this position.
Thank You,
Dan Isaacs
A+ Certified Technician
- Dan I.
It's become rather fashionable to mock the foolishness of the dot-coms. How many of us were mocking them eighteen months ago? With all of the talk about the "New Economy" and the "Internet Revolution" I think all of us thought there was a chance that things had really changed.
Personally, I was offered a job at Oracle and a job at a startup at exactly the same time. The startup offered more pay, free training, a more relaxed atmosphere, more career mobility, and free lunch on Wednesdays. Which would you have picked? It really was a dream job. Inevitably perhaps, the company tanked and I got axed in the last round of layoffs. I still don't regret the choice. At least I can say that I was right there in the thick of it. The dot-com boom will end up in the history books, and it'll make some great stories to tell the grandkids.
Meanwhile, it stings a little to read constant mockery from people that were your ardent supporters last year. A lot of us got hurt when the bubble burst, and I'd rather see a helping hand extended than a middle finger.
This
This is a summary of all the dot.com stories this guy has read. It dosn't mean that this particular sotry is true. After all, with the ecomony just plain sucking right now, and most of the dot.com businesses going under, this was just representing what most people want to do with e-commerse. Big expectations, going to make huge money on a product that nobody knows abour and a product that nobody really needs but your too fooslish to realize it, work with only people you know and like, and comming up with the most unorthodox methods of running your businees because they suit your needs of work monday & tuesday, and jerk off wednesday to sunday. Finaly realizing that your business if doomed becuase you had no idea what you were getting into, until it was far to late. (final plunge out the window onto the limo you leased at far too much of a price - because it looked good outside of your business)
Worst article ever!
Wonk Wonk!
What is it? FriedEgg.com? Done it. Raised $14b and now live on a small island of my own.
Remember that the majority of people involved in the .com boom were highly intelligent people, some of whom had already made a fiscal success of their lives. I don't believe their greed unbalanced their intellect. I believe something else happened that is a sign of our times.
Technology has advanced to a state now where it is rare, if not impossible, to have a complete grasp of more than one subject. Technology in its widest sense simply means a body of knowlegde, so I'm also using this to refer to wider contexts, such as finance, or business too. We rely on the expertise of others. Clearly the marriage of finance/business and internet technology is what failed here. Two groups of people with sound knowledge of their own areas failed to communicate clearly in the confusion and excitement of a new 'goldrush'. Financiers were scared that their speciality was about to be usurped by something new and alien to them, and they jumped on board the e-tech bandwagon for fear of being left behind.
The lessons we must learn from this are profound. I have my own views as to what some of them might be, but it would be facile to attempt to put them down here in such a short message.
I somehow have difficulty feeling sorry for an employee who felt that role playing games and synergy were more important than delivering a product. I've seen dozens of entepeneurs with great ideas and actual results who couldn't get the time of day from capitalists, while these guys come up with a colour and took a lot of time to do nothing. Honestly, the world doesn't need synergy...it doesn't need a group of youngsters who feel good about charging blindly into a business world using pitchforks to unload bowling balls. What the American business landscape needs is nice products -- fine china so we don't buy from Mikasa, a quality automobile so we don't buy from BMW, a quality TV so we don't by from SONY, and decent clothing so we don't buy from Indonesia. We need blue collar work to reduce crime and better pay for salesman, so they don't need to force crap and extended warranties down our throats to live. But this is what we get...funding for dumb ideas (or, in this case, no ideas...just elves and trolls in yellow caps dreaming hazily) while great ones sit on the sidelines because they don't offer to change the world.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Sad part is, some of the real-life stories I have heard are worse than this story. Bad business ideas, bad hirings, bad money spending. I can't wait for the next computer/network revalation to hit so I can 1) put my money in early and get the (inflated) earnings out early 2) watch and laugh as the same mistakes are made again.
At the time I wondered if I should make the dotcom leap into the "big money." Decided that it wasn't stable enough, stayed where I was, and got a 19% raise in Dec. '99 from my current employer for a job well done, but mostly because they were scared to lose me! With a little patience and insight (or luck?) I still have a job with benefits and seniority, and a kick ass raise to boot (no pun intended).
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
And actually, I already have a patented copyrighted method for pre-empting claims to IP and the impending patent and/or copyright that your invention would generate. So, you can see, that All Your Internet Volume Knobs Are Belong To Me.
"Hey Bob, did you set me up that bomb yet?"
Actually you could point a webcam at the monitor and there would be a use.
Oh, retract that. Where was the patent office? Anybody know any good investors?
*reads the post again*
Hmm. Okay, you're right. Chalk up one stupid point for me.
--
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
I object! My post was most definitely Informative. It informs people most efficaciously about the dangers of posting without using one's brain.
--
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
Sebbo isn't Offtopic, you dumbass moderators. He understood the original post better than I did. What is _wrong_ with you people?
--
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
> Some .comer's were just in it for the investors
...I know many people that did just that.
> money?
> Kinda sad
...that I wasn't able to fully partake in this.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
They needed 300 people to make software that would change monitor settings over the internet??? And 300 programmers aggreed that this was a good enough idea to invest time and their lives in? Who the hell wants to change the brightness of their screen when not in front of the computer?
You know, like the book says? Sheesh! I'm no MENSA candidate, but I'm not dense...
The hooligans are loose! The hooligans are loose! What if they become ruffians? -- Bill Hicks
Wow is this ground shaking news?
How do you become investor?
Well
A: You spend a lifetime and earn it *laugh*
or most likely
B: Daddy spent his lifestime earning money and
exploiting others and gives you a couple million.
The concept of money and interest don't really make sense when you start crossing a generation or two, it just lets people who have no brain cells dictate how the world will develop.
There are tons of technologies and sciences worth investing and cornering the market on, but if you're a brain dead Tycon's lil prodigy you're probably better off just putting your cash in a bank account
God spoke to me
Ow. I think I'm having a flashback.
I love this kind of article. It brings out all those that believe that irony is a kind of metal.
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
I think he's serious. It is _much_ easier to hit a web page, log in, find the control panel, read a few adverts, and _then_ adjust your monitor settings, than it is to turn those Big buttons on the monitor. And you still have the ESD factor with touching your monitor. Do you know how many times I read in my trusty A+ guide not to touch my monitor?
I, for one, am glad that someone was looking out for _my_ best interests...
DocWatson
MessEdUp
#/var/www/v
... to real life. Where we have to produce results to eat and sleep in a warm bed. We are living with a generation of kids who have had everything handed to them their whole lives, and now that they are out in the workforce they expect to do something "fun" and get paid good jack for it. I would pay good money to see the look on these kids faces when the realization hits them that they have to actually work for a living.
- Pharao
I am VC workman. I like idea you have. Please, you have beezeenice plan? No? No problem. I give you money. Only problem, I do not have too much time to do doodoodiligence. You tell me if ok, OK? Also, please, can color be changed to Blue? Mrs VC not like Yellow. PS. Person who mentioned business where "dog shit is purchased online"...is still possible to subscribe? Such opportunity fits our investment philosophy perfectly. I have young MBA name Chad from Tuck run it through our 'model'.