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.Com Millionaires: Where are they now?
Sivar writes "They came pitching gee-whiz business plans and painting visions of integrated platforms, enabling technologies, and wizardry beyond compare. They created billions in wealth that seemed built on--and that all too often evaporated into--thin air. More than thirty former .com millionaires, what they were, and what they are now are on Fortune.com. One on sabbatical, one awaiting a prison sentence, there are some interesting transitions some have had."
Would you like some McDonaldland cookies with that?
3,000. Problem is their managers at Kinkos, Starbucks and Target would not give them the time-off for the interview.
Pedro
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The Insomniac Coder
Does anybody else find it disturbing that not only did they (FBI) let a pedophile off the hook but they also let him design their system for catching pedophiles. Not only is he free to rape children, but because he designed the system he knows how to avoid detction also. Great job FBI I feel really safe knowing you're there to protect my children.
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
For anyone familiar with Internet before the dot-com stampede, it seemed a little odd that new companies were spending fortunes creating television commercials that rivaled long standing successful companies like Pepsi and Budweiser. The Internet companies that were (and remain) successful got there by word-of-mouth - on the Internet, for people savvy enough to be on the Internet. Companies like Yahoo and Amazon didn't branch into television ads until they had a strong foothold. Companies like Id software, still don't advertise (or very little) on TV, they don't need to. The e-Toys commercials were amazing, and when I first saw them I thought 'How can they do that? They must have spent a fortune on that.' Then there was the Super Bowl that was blanketed with dot-com advertising, the most expensive of ads. Years later now we know. They set up shop in cyber space, then marketed to brick and mortar consumers. They created an imaginary business model built on speculation and pipe dreams. Investors lost fortunes. They only legacy they left was a recipe for a fool-hardy business plan that we can learn NOT to follow.
OK, so Joe Schmo gets a bunch of investors interested in a harebrained plan, scoops up millions of dollars from them, and then loses the money.
Where did it go? SOMEONE must have gotten rich off of the dot-com craze and subsequent bust... was it hardware manufacturers who provided all of the infrastructure for the failed-from-the start companies? Or was it the grocery store down the street, where all of the free (for employees) food and soda was bought? Who was the final filter point for all of the dot-com money?
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
Dot-commers were always a diverse group, from the founders down to the mailroom these companies tended to attract folks with a wide range of interests & capabilities. That's one of the things that I found fun about working for a startup & one of the things I found scary about working for a startup.
Is it any surprise that these same folks have movd on to varied new vocations & avocations?
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." --Napoleon Bonaparte
..the answer is simple.
Most of the money went in salaries and advertising.
Salaries generally form a company's largest expense, other than stock, and most of these Internet companies had no stock (consultancies, design agencies, etc) or were drop shipping.
Dot com companies were also keen on advertising, so a lot of money went into the new media magazines of the time.. but even then, the money ended up in the pockets of the writers and editors.. so, really, it all went in salaries.
A lot of people were employed to do almost nothing during the dot com boom. This means that they added little to production, yet took a paycheck every month. That's where the money was 'wasted' and why we can see no remnant of it today.. effectively the wealth was used to buy a few years' 'free time' for a group of lazy bastards.
Nowadays the market is not so great, but is much more realistic. People who are productive earn their money, people who aren't don't.
mogorific carpentry experiments
Oh goodie, I see Fortune included that scumbag Marc Colon-Wrecker in their list. The former head of Digital Entertainment Network, Colon-Wrecker is currently awaiting extradition from Spain for transporting a minor across state lines with the intent of engaging in sex. There's a great Flash movie done in the South Park style that dramatizes the DEN story quite nicely.
Just don't play it at work, unless you work in a porn shop.
While I have absolutely no problem with wealth per se, I do object to the implication that they must have done something right, as the vast majority on that list simply did not create any wealth. In fact, most had a negative impact by causing money to be diverted from better investments (and from those that deserved it more). What's more, I believe that most of them learned very little from their experiences, unlike other failed entreprenuers. Compared to real entreprenuers they did not: work at the same intensity; put in the same kinds of hours; expose themselves to risk; invest their own money (by and large); have to make hard decisions (e.g., they had enough VC money to do EVERYTHING); live spartan; spend much time at it (2-3 years in many cases); face rejection; and so on...
That they work at private equity firms and are back at business school does not impress me either, because many of my peers are in much the same position and that, in and of itself, means little. About all that I can say for them is that they HAPPEN to be wealthier than the average MBA. Might some of them some day redeem themselves? Maybe. But I'd never hire them (well 99% of them) for their DotCom experience [in fact, I'd say that the naivety/stupidity would be a mark against their intelligence] or because they got lucky enough to walk away with someone else's money.
Just wondering, how are our own .com^H^H^Horg millionares doing? How about it, CmdrTaco|Hemos?
www.eFax.com are spammers
A fact: In business, there are always more failures than success (80/20 rule). The dot-bust is simply a more spectacular example of that. It seems however, this article "about millionaires" seems to want to spin the Fortune story in the favor of the failures and not the success. Bezos comes to mind even though I love to poke fun at him (not to mention his employment practices are damn shady). Despite being ventured capitaled to the hilt he is still alive and kicking. There are others too. I know bitching and moaning about the dot-bust is popular, but even it's had it's moments.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Wouldn't it be more like:
Customers leveraging the SuperSize platform will have the ability to seamlessly integrate real-time product expansion into their enterprise hunger environment. Architected to provide tighter integration and deeper collaboration, the SuperSize Solution will enable global customers to recognize greater results from collaboration, streamline efficiencies in the supply chain, and reduce costs.
And since jwz is on Slashdot: Howdy, I just moved cross country to a semi reasonable distance from the Bay area - I'm planning on hitting your place fairly soon - still poking around the local area.
--
Evan (no references)
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
I was one of those "bright entrepreneurs" who built an online business (7am.com)with great traffic and an even better future.
Unlike so many of the flash-in-the-pan wondersites that no longer exist, it wasn't built on millions of dollars in VC funding and didn't have large offices filled with geeks on scooters or a carpark filled with Porsches and BMWs.
Started in 1997, it was very much a "one-man band" for two years, during which time it grew from a good idea into one of the most widely syndicated web-based news services on the Net.
Getting it from zero to two million hits a day by 1999 meant working 18-19 hours per day, every day for two straight years and living on the smell of an oily rag.
Suffice to say that I recall quite vividly the day my eardrum burst while I was typing up a breaking news story. I'd gotten an inner ear infection but was too busy to go to the doctor.
I should also point out that 7am.com didn't have the benefit of being US-based. Instead, it was located in rural New Zealand -- half a world away from its target marketplace.
This meant that my workday started at around 11pm and finished at 6pm-7pm the next day.
It also meant that I had to use sweat-equity and innovation to replace a large workforce and lots of capital. 7am.com was a real groundbreaker in the area of syndicated news content on the Web and to this day continues to deliver content through a network of over 200,000 websites.
In 1999 I was approached by a group of local (NZ) "suits" who wanted to buy in and take 7am.com to the NASDAQ.
Remember that by this time the webserver was tracking over 2 million hits per day, the syndication network was about 125,000 third-party websites in size, I had regular advertisers, and Nielsens/NetRatings had rated 7am.com as being more popular than news.bbc.co.uk, CNNfn, Playboy.com and a raft of others.
So, at the peak of the dot-com boom, what would you pay for a site with these respectible figures?
Unfortunately I didn't have a whole lot of other suitors banging down my door and I knew that in order to maintain or improve my position in the market I had to pour more capital into the operation -- so beggars can't be choosers. (The lack of other investors was/is a sad indictment on the state of the VC industry in New Zealand).
I ended up accepting a figure that was (in US$ terms) just in the six-figure bracket.
After paying back the money I'd borrowed to start up the business, some tax, and catching up on the mortgage I was left with just over $10,000 in cash.
I was also left with 34% of the company but I was promised that that I could now slow down my own pace of work, take weekends off and maybe even enjoy a vacation.
Most importantly to me was the promise that the investors would bring skilled business management to the enterprise.
Now I'm the first person to put up my hand and admit that I'm not, and don't aspire to be, a great business manager. I'm an "ideas guy" and I'm also quite competent at marketing -- but crunching numbers and brokering multi-million dollar deals just doesn't spin my wheels I'm afraid.
So here I was -- my bills were up to date, I had a few thousand in my back pocket, I had 34% of (at the time) the world's most widely syndicated web-based news service, and the future looked rosey!
What's more, an independent valuation of the business (made in 1999/2000) suggested that it was worth at least US$40 million
Unfortunately I soon learned that the promises of the new investors were pretty hollow and that they figured they knew the online news business better than me -- despite the fact that none of them had any experience in this field whatsoever.
I was working harder than ever and while everyone else was partying, I had to do 36-hours straight during the millennium eve/day celebrations so as to provide the site with around-the-clock coverage. That promised vacation never eventuated either.
I also gave up trying to provide input and direction because what had been a dynamic, exciting, innovative operation with ultra-low overheads became just another corporate monolith.
By mid-2000 I resigned my positions as director, board-member and news director -- it was simply too frustrating.
To cut a long story short -- I still have a 34% interest in 7am.com, the company continues to trade and remains a significant player in the syndicated news-content market -- but I've never seen another penny.
This annoys the snot out of me because I have since had a number of
good ideas but can't afford to fund them.
So, if anyone wants to buy my 34% of 7am.com for a song -- just drop me a line and we'll talk. I've got better things to do with the money than leave it tied up in a large, slow-moving corporate beast.