The New Brat Pack of Silicon Valley

bart_scriv writes "BusinessWeek looks at the current entrepreneurs of Web 2.0 via the lens of Kevin Rose and Digg. Although the article focuses on the rise and success of Digg, it also looks at the ethos of Web 2.0 and its successful companies, including YouTube, Del.icio.us, Facebook and Xfire. From the article: 'Clearly much has changed since 1999, and Rose and his fellow wealth punks have little in common with the sharp-talking MBAs in crisp khakis and blue button-downs who rushed the Valley as the NASDAQ climbed. In the late 1990s, entrepreneurs were the supplicants, and Sand Hill Road, dotted with venture-capital firms, was the mecca. Dot-commers relied on VCs for the millions needed to buy hardware, rent servers, hire designers, and advertise like crazy to bring in the eyeballs. For their big stakes of, say, $15 million for 20% of a company, venture capitalists received board seats, control of the management levers, and most of the equity. Now, it's more like: Maybe we'll let you throw a few bucks our way -- if you get it. Otherwise, get lost.'"

Comments

So are any of the Brat Pack profitable?

[winkydink]

Meet the new web, same as the old web.

Re:So are any of the Brat Pack profitable?

[mikael_j]

Or maybe he just doesn't see wealth and expensive status symbols to be the most important thing in life? Maybe he enjoys sharing an apartment with others?

/Mikael J

Re:So are any of the Brat Pack profitable?

[DSW-128]

How does this rate as flamebait? He's got a valid point - no everybody flashes their $$$. Perhaps these guys learned something from the last bust - not everybody will be successful, so perhaps they're actually saving some of that $$$ in case things do go bust.

Little in common?

[Aladrin]

So, the perpetrators of the current web2.0 bubble has little in common with the dot-com bubble?

Let's see...

Fly-by-night operations... check.
Crazed Investors... check.
Funny naming conventions... check.
Non-standard work-places... check.
Failure-to-profit... check.

Oh yeah, SO VERY LITTLE in common.

Well, let's see what they don't have in common...
Different clothes.
Different year.

Umm... Yeah, that's it.

lessons to web 2.0 CEOs

[uioreanu]

It appears to be a lesson every of the Web 2.0 CEO must learn: pop up your human side, dress casual and don't show your wealth. And the best of all: make people say poor guy; manipulate people's sympathy (Rose's girlfriend sad story, sleepless etc), it will open all doors

It's called Cyberpunk

[Qbertino]

Bandwidth nearly free, hardware cheap, software free. All you need is time, skills, devotion and a good idea. Who needs VC? Back in 1999 people where shedding millions just to get a proper DB up and running. Nowadays all it takes is two clicks of a mouse and a 3 minute download. Hell, you can get yourself a new server after working a few extra shifts at Mc Donalds if the need arises. My cheap-ass PDA has more horsepower than my workstation back then. It's the age of Cyberpunk, pure and simple.