Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the what-happened-to-the-netwinder dept.
halo8 writes: "There is a story on the Ottawa Citizen about Rebel.Com - how they were private, went public during the tech boom, made millons, spent millons (buying james dean logo and rebel.com address). See part I and part II.
it's funny...
by
turbine216
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
...to look back at the mistakes of the "not-so-long-ago"...
The.COM "boom" and the associated bust was a gold rush, plain and simple. We're all aware of that now...some of us were even affected by it very heavily. Rebel.com and its proprietors are only one of probably thousands of similar ventures that failed miserably because they thought they had the market cornered. EVERYBODY thought they had the market cornered (especially PETS.COM), and most of them went broke.
Moral of this story (and every other identical story that we've read for the past 6 months)...if it seems too good to be true, it is. Now let's move on, please.
Re:it's funny...
by
doctor_oktagon
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
The.COM "boom" and the associated bust was a gold rush, plain and simple
Well in the UK we're just about to finish the process of removing well nigh all Telco and Tech stocks from our FTSE100 Stock Exchange measurement.
This will stop the market going up and down like a Yo-Yo, and inspire small investors to keep some faith in their investments.
I'd like to take every Boo! backer, and stupid Venture Capatalist that started this mess and show them the misery caused by a recession. We're suffering badly in the UK and we're no worse off than anyone else.
If I recall correctly, this story is very similar to (but albeit perhaps more detailed than) other stories that disected other IPOs and Internet Startups back when everything started crashing. I can see how it would be interesting, but nothing seems like particularly big news or anything that an intelligent person not blinded by the.com craze would not have seen coming.
I'd say that unless you're really interested in reading another ".com failure" saga, or have an interest in Rebel in particular, this is probably a really long article you can afford to skip.
As they say in Buffalo, just my Canadian $0.02
-- _sig_ is away
Re:And, what's the news?
by
MikeBabcock
·
· Score: 2
Actually, its quite interesting from the perspective of how not to fail when you've got a good thing going. The key points to the failure of rebel.com become apparent as you read the article and are worth noting.
Get your facts straight
by
andrewm
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Rebel.com was _NOT_ a public company. It never went IPO.
The Rebel.com offices are _NOT_ gilt in gold. They are quite simple and plain.
The majority share holder (remember it was a PRIVATE company) was Mac Brown. He is gregarious and ostentatious. He was probably the only one that made any money.
Many Rebel.com employees lost a lot of money by investing in this PRIVATE company. Many borrowed and re-mortgaged their homes to invest. I personally didn't invest. I lost only my stock options which were never worth anything since they could not be traded (becaue it was _NOT_ a public company).
If you want more facts, let me know. I still work there for the receiver, KPMG.
--
Andrew E. Mileski
Former Senior Software Engineer at Rebel.com
I was just scrolling down and noticed the tiny number of comments (compared to ~2000 on one of the WTC stories above) and was going to make some snappy remark about how lively this discussion was. However, it may get livelier. The economy is going to boing back and forth as a result of the bombings. Let's hope opportunistic bastards who think they're going to profit from this are put in public stocks and have model jetplanes thrown at them.
-- One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
This is the last /. story before the world changed
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Slashdot Mirror
James Dean in "Rebel.com without a clue"
TODO: Something witty here...
The
Moral of this story (and every other identical story that we've read for the past 6 months)...if it seems too good to be true, it is. Now let's move on, please.
If I recall correctly, this story is very similar to (but albeit perhaps more detailed than) other stories that disected other IPOs and Internet Startups back when everything started crashing. I can see how it would be interesting, but nothing seems like particularly big news or anything that an intelligent person not blinded by the .com craze would not have seen coming.
I'd say that unless you're really interested in reading another ".com failure" saga, or have an interest in Rebel in particular, this is probably a really long article you can afford to skip.
As they say in Buffalo, just my Canadian $0.02
_sig_ is away
Rebel.com was _NOT_ a public company. It never went IPO.
The Rebel.com offices are _NOT_ gilt in gold. They are quite simple and plain.
The majority share holder (remember it was a PRIVATE company) was Mac Brown. He is gregarious and ostentatious. He was probably the only one that made any money.
Many Rebel.com employees lost a lot of money by investing in this PRIVATE company. Many borrowed and re-mortgaged their homes to invest. I personally didn't invest. I lost only my stock options which were never worth anything since they could not be traded (becaue it was _NOT_ a public company).
If you want more facts, let me know. I still work there for the receiver, KPMG.
--
Andrew E. Mileski
Former Senior Software Engineer at Rebel.com
Somehow the terrorist attacks have drawn interest away from his story! Amazing...
___
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
Never again.
It's all different now.