Dot Con: How Infospace Took Investors For A Ride

Jeff writes "On the subject of the dot com crash, the Seattle Times recently ran an outstanding three day series on the corruption at Infospace, with a follow up today on the company's continued relations with its founder, Naveen Jain. Sunday's cover photo of Jain's new office shows a birthday photo of himself and another self-portrait in the background. Only the reflecting pool is missing."

Comments

This story makes no sense.

[karmaflux]

I can't figure out why either company matters, what the hell this has to do with GNU, Linux, GNU/Linux, the F/OSS community, iPods, Eugenia from OS News, or Microsoft. It's not a MySQL story. Nobody's hammering the Mozilla Foundation. Firefox isn't even mentioned. And there's no question at the end like "what does this mean for Google's world domination plans?"

I'm sorry, man, I just don't know what to make of this article.

Re:This story makes no sense.

[The Amazing Fish Boy]

The man has a suction cup bow and arrow. A suction cup bow and arrow. That beats an Apple-Firefox-Google threesome any day.

Better Invesment

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still pissed that I lost the money I invested in Infospace. Oh well, I hope to make a large return from the money I've invested in CherryOS and the Phantom console.

Reflections in the windows...

[coldmist]

I don't care about any "reflection pools". I want that 24"+ widescreen LCD monitor you can see in the reflection!

Go right ahead.

[PornMaster]

It's OK. Post the exact same story. We're used to dupes.

Re:Go right ahead.

[JNighthawk]

The irony here blows my mind. Bravo.

Re:I interviewed there once...

[ackthpt]

that's so funny! I was just thinking about whether or not to post the *exact* same story. I too interviewed there and that same gentlement told me quote "I wrote our own database because Oracle was too slow".

It was at that point that I began to wonder if things weren't quite right with Infospace.

Did he mention anything about the new Bubble Sort they were pioneering, because it was much less code?

Re:What about employees?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shortly after my last day in December 2003, the entire executive board was replaced. Now InfoSpace is posting good numbers and wireless makes money.

Coincidence? I think not.

Don't be so hard on yourself. I'm sure it had nothing to do with you leaving.

My Experience with Infospace

[mihalis]

They had a channel on AvantGo, so every day I'd have updated tech news on my Palm Pilot.

It was absolute garbage

. It seemed like it was being written by an intern surfing CNET in the mornings, then writing the stories from memory in the afternoons, whilst watching MTV.

I removed the channel!

Choice quotes on Jean-Remy

[delmoi]

Like most of the instant millionaires, [Jean-Remy] Facq and the others were not able to sell their stock for six months. But that didn't mean they couldn't start shopping.

A month after InfoSpace went public, Facq ordered a $103,000 Dodge Viper. He shipped the Viper to Hawaii, where he commissioned an artist to paint its hood with a Hawaiian scene -- the sun setting over dolphins cavorting in blue waters. Tab for the paint job: $150,000 ... Not to be outdone, Facq two days later walked into a dealership and wrote a salesman a $1.1 million check to buy a Lamborghini Diablo and a Ferrari F50. "I just wanted to see the look on his face," Facq said ... Anything Facq wanted, he could have. Disappointed by the jewelry at Tiffany & Co. -- "I wanted something more pimpish" -- Facq designed enormous rings and commissioned a jeweler to make them. He called himself the "Lord of the Rings."