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Last Great Internet Bubble Auction
jlouderb writes "At least that's what they are calling it. Cowan Alexander is getting ready to auction off the assets of MP3.com (now owned by CNet) on March 10th and 11th. The items up for sale include lots of those dumb Herman Miller Aeron chairs that were so popular, along with servers and notebooks that are probably hopelessly out of date. The best part, though -- a 1997 yellow hummer and a 1994 "Fat Boy" Harley. Plus, they've got pictures!"
It seemed to me that MP3 went due to the lawsuits and harrassment from RIAA, not because they had a particularly flawed business model (aside from the music sharing thing), though a Hummer, Harley, Pool table and other junk does suggest an overeagerness to burn through capital.
The items up for sale include lots of those dumb Herman Miller Aeron chairs
I'd still like to get one of those, but with the price of shipping and gas being what it is, I'm better off looking for one around where I live. I could certainly use a new laptop, but there's piles of those around for cheep.
I've tried the Aeron chair out and it seemed like a decent chair, are they not all they appear?
I had one of those swedish (or whatever they were) chairs you kneel in and found my upper back became very sore, so that didn't last.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Yeah, sure, these chairs came to symbolise the greed of the Dotom Bubble, and they may be "dumb and popular", but there's no denying one thing: they are comfortable. Ask anyone who's ever sat in one, and they will agree. Definitely not worth the $750 per chair that my company paid for them at the time, but they are very comfortable.
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The pricey Herman Miller Aeron chair may have become a symbol of dot-com excesses, but to call it "dumb" is going overboard -- it's a great chair. It's gotten somewhat of a bum rap because many people never take the five minutes to adjust the chair to their body shape. Once you make the proper adjustments, it's heaven. I never understood why you wouldn't properly calibrate a "peripheral" that you use 100% of the time while you're working. Treat your ass with respect!
I participated in the Enron auction, and let me tell you it was utterly a waste of time. The prices really were hardly less than retail value, and considering that the equipment was used (i was mostly interested in computers and lcd's) it was overpriced. What you had were lots of dumb folks out there that jacked up the prices so that nothing was really all that good of a deal or anything to be surprised about. I swear there were used 15" LCD's going for $4-500. You could buy one from BestBuy for that price last year.
I'm just really skeptical about these auctions. I found that it really wasn't worth the effort of getting registered, calling in, etc.
This is exactly why these companies went belly up. You barely have a product in an ill defined niche with no real defined revenue stream. Yet, the company is able to build all sorts of cool little baubles, model rocket ships, framed guitars, high end ass buckets, Hummer automobiles, work out equipment etc...etc...etc... from start up capital.
This is exactly why I want to see first hand any startup company that I am interested in investing in. Field trips aren't just for grade schoolers.
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Then they got bought out by Vivendi-Universal, and suddenly dropped completely off of the radar, only to be quietly shut down once they were forgotten.
Hmmmmm.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
Would this even be illegal? If I sell you my old paper journal that I wrote in with ball-point pen (after ripping out the pages I've used) and neglect to rip out the first few blank pages and you color them in with a pencil and recover my private thoughts is that your fault or mine?
Likewise, unless you sign some sort of "I won't try to recover data from this device" agreement, how would it be illegal? Even then it would be civil -- not criminal.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
If you give a chimp a gun, you can't blame the chimp if he shoots your granny ...
We ALL knew during the bubble that these companies were frauds, but we didn't care because we were ALL playing the market like a casino. The only people to blame are ourselves, the investors.
i would like to ask if there is another channel (maybe MP3-UG.com?) for these underground music to continue their distribution and people to download them legally?
A coporation might stand out with a Tempest machine, but I think if I were interviewing with a firm and I saw Galaga & Ms. Pacman, I'd like to think that the handwriting was on the wall...
Frankly, if you interview for a position with a company and they show you *any* video games (or other dot-com trappings such as a "coffee bar") and tout them as employee benefits, I think it should serve as a red flag. Those kind of amenities are there for one reason: to convince employees to work for a company that they would normally run the hell away from. It's almost always compensation for some other business shortcomings (i.e. excruciatingly long hours, zero job security, a paper-thin business model, etc).
"I work 80 hour weeks, no overtime, the phones went out for 4 hours yesterday because we didn't pay the bill... but we've got free video games and lattes in the break room, and my boss is so cool, he drives a Hummer. This place is great!"
You know what? Just give me a boring old cube, a desk, a decent computer, and a steady paycheck with a company where I don't lie awake at night wondering if the doors will be open when I get there tomorrow. Oh, and some old curmudgeon of a boss who's been in business for 20 years and actually knows how to run a company.
Don't you think the folks who submitted songs kept copies for themselves? I did.
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Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.
Indeed, frankly, a lot of it is still justifiable.
A good chair means that 100k/year coder is gonna be able to work out their inspiration without the distractions of an aching back or sticky ass. For a $500 more then the standard office crap-chair that's a good investment, especially as a capital depreciation and defense in an bad-ergo disability suite.
Similar for food, drink, and toys. It keeps the crew in the building, talking to each other. It means they're not taking their hour off to troop to the local lunch hole where they'll be sitting at the table next to the competition spilling your plans. Figure $arcade-game = $day-at-teamwork-camp, not a bad value amortized.
Furthermore it's amazing the kinda allegiance baubles and amenities like that will buy. I've seen folks turn down 30% larger paychecks for a trendy office space, free fruit juice, and a tres kewl atmosphere. Multiply that by a full of staff and per-person it comes down to a great value with the improved recruiting and retention, costs a fraction the headhunter, interview, and training costs.
Lastly, cars and motorcycles? Promo costs. Tax code is nice to 'em and they get your name out there. Check around your current employer and you'll probably be amazed at some of the trophies and gifts and banners and other paraphernalia that they're purchasing as a matter of course.
Particularly for .com's half of the "product" was name and buzz, scoring the next VC round. Flashy toys things were standard, indeed de rigeur. Getting an article in the local paper, your logo shown at a rave, instant PR and cheap at the price. It's easy to be snide afterwards but then those were the rules of the game and what got you your paycheck, sensible or not.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Having worked at a startup (that failed!) I'm sure it is much worse than meets the eye. How much did all that eye candy cost after all? I'm sure _ONE_ million dollars would go a long way towards buying all that workout equipment, the Humvee and replacement motor, the washer/drywer, foosball, The Sneaker, those autographed guitars, AND the Aeron chairs. Keep in mind this company found a way to zero HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of dollars and you're not doing that with Pez machines and steel welded mp3.com vanity logos.
People don't realize that most of the early dot coms were basically Ponzi Schemes.
You look at these pictures of perverse excess and luxury that seemingly had little to do with their business model but you are ignoring the fact that "appearing" to be wildly successful to the point of wasteful spending was THE most substantive part of these companies' business models.
The scheme involved inflating the value and impression of the company long enough to snag another greedy investor or corporation and then hand the mess off to them. It was inevitable that at some point, the pyramid scheme would collapse in on itself. The trick is to just make sure you get out before it does, or more appropriately, make sure you're not stupid enough to let your sense of greed lull you into believing any of these people know what they're doing.
When I see things like this, it makes it a lot easier for me to live with myself knowing that while I could have over-hyped my dot-com and made a bundle, it was not the right thing to do, even though I admit that any individual or company dumb enough to purchase or pump capital into a business with no tangible revenue stream deserves to get ripped off.
In it's heyday MP3.com claimed to have about 100,000 songs in its database. So 100,000 x (4 minutes avg song) x (1MB/min at 128kps mp3) = 400GB. That's just to store the songs.
Then you have to deliver that content to several million users and maintain their accounts. Also you might want to bill them automatically as they buy instead of sending them a paper bill each month. So you may want to set up a B2B relationship with Visa, MC, Amex, Discover.
On the web site, you might want to host your own site rather than pay someone to host it for you since your content may change dramatically every day and you may want the most flexibility in terms of control. Also with serveral million users, your bandwidth bill if you pay another company to host may be huge. Hosting your own site may be the way to go.
Since mp3 is your product, you might want to rip and encode your own rather than get a copy from your brother/neighbor/friend. It would help too to complete the ID3 tags and grab that data from cddb.com or somewhere else.
Oh, by the way, all those functions above need a backup server just in case. Throw in an email servers, a Windows Domain Controller, a few file and print servers and that only leaves finance, HR, payroll, accounting, marketing, and code development to buy computers and set up infrastructure.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Well, since professional IT people clean hard drives before they give them away...uh, no. Do you seriously think they're that stupid?
They may not be able to focus a camera to save their lives(it's so bad, you'd almost think it was intentional), but I strongly suspect every drive has been completely(for all practical purposes) wiped clean, and I mean more than just "zap the partition table". Further, I guarantee the music files were the least of their concerns. Financials, emails, etc...
Speaking of the photos, did anyone else notice a lot of the photos(harley, Hummer) were very obviously on someone's private property, and further, were rather lacking in mp3.com logos? Someone was getting some free vehicles for personal use on the company dime.
Please help metamoderate.
Unfortunately they died as well. At least I didn't bother staying until I had an opportunity to move out instead of up. It was a great first job on my resume until the fiasco, luckily for me I departed a few years before the shit hit the fan.
Working for myself is excellent. My boss isn't bad, the pay is good, the hours are a bit much but that is my choosing, and the only person I have to rely on for security is myself!
yeah, but you kinda get used to having it there as a backup, like your songs would *always* be there on mp3.com, no need to keep them on your drive (need to make room for paris hilton full you know!)
I for one had to do a mad scramble to download and archive all my stuff off of mp3.com
I also got screwed out of like 20 bucks from them which I email bickered with them for 2 years over (on principle). Both mp3.com and cnet get two thumbs down, booing AND hissing.
e.
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I can understand that you like the chairs. I spend more than I should on fancy pens, and one can reasonably argue that they're not the smartest thing for me to spend my money on. On the other hand, it is MY MONEY (at least until it goes for taxes, my gf, etc.)
The problem isn't that any of these items such as the Herman Miller chairs, the Hummers (although I could be convinced on that one...) or the Harleys aren't good, but that they're bought with someone else's money. Like the Tyco and Enron folks now, the dot-com people spent their investors' money as if it was given for their personal enjoyment rather than to fund a business intended to succeed. Items such as the above are good products, but their costs to individuals are not in most cases worth the benefits to the individuals. On the other hand, things like this are good if the money is someone else's; then the only comparison required is whether you could buy something else with which you would be happier with the money.
Bottom line - if these items are worth your money, buying them makes sense. If it isn't worth your own money to buy them, however, than it certainly isn't the job of your investors or companies to buy them for you, and they are ultimately counterproductive to the missions those people intended to achieve (because the money could almost certainly be used for things more likely to achieve their ends). When companies buy these things, someone else almost certain got ripped off to buy them - whether it is their customers, investors, or others in the company. Their presence says that the people running the show treat other people's money as their own personal piggy bank, and such people aren't to be trusted (at least not with my money).
Just give me a boring old cube, a desk, a decent computer, and a steady paycheck with a company where I don't lie awake at night wondering if the doors will be open when I get there tomorrow. Oh, and some old curmudgeon of a boss who's been in business for 20 years and actually knows how to run a company.
I might recommend that you try working for the government. The non-shooting parts are pretty much like all you describe, besides the "competent manager" bit, but you can't have everything.
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$tar -xvf
Look at all that stuff. Games. Gym. More games. Video studio. Audio Studio. Top end furniture. And massive amounts of computer stuff.
Something seems wrong here. I run a small business and we don't throw money around like there is an infinite amount - we are responsible. Why, when it's "other people's money" is it ok to go hog wild? When I was in a dot-com in the boom years they were spending like a drunken sailor also, and when I asked why the response was that the VC people wanted it to look like a winning company, with lavish offices and everything so that they had a good cash out strategy. All the top people knew it was insane but they had to play the game.