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F'd Companies: Spectacular Dot-Com Flameouts

by Philip J. Kaplan

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1103261,927 (3.33)None
Not long ago, the world was awash with venture capital in search of the next Yahoo! or Amazon.com. No product, no experience, no technology, no business plan -- no problem. You could still get $40 million from investors to start up your dot-com. And you could get people to work around the clock for stock options and the promise of millions. Then, around April 2000, it all came crashing down. Smart investors, esteemed analysts, and the business press found themselves asking: Who knew people wouldn't rush out to trade in their U.S. dollars for a virtual currency called Flooz? Who knew people wouldn't blow all their Flooz on a used car from the guys at iMotors.com? And who needed a used car from iMotors.com when they could just sit at home and have 40-lb. bags of dog food delivered to them by a sock puppet? F'd Companies captures the waste, greed, and human stupidity of more than 100 dot-com companies. Written in Philip J. Kaplan's popular, cynical style, these profiles are filled with colorful anecdotes, factoids, and information unavailable anywhere else. Together they form a gleeful encyclopedia of how not to run a business. They also capture a truly remarkable period of history. F'd Companies is required reading for everyone involved in the "new economy" -- assuming your severance check can cover the cost.… (more)
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This is basically a list of dot-com flame-outs padded with repetitive, high school-level humor (most notably, lots of references to masturbation). While the descriptions of the failed dot coms are inherently interesting, Kaplan's comments offer little to no insight as to how the internet bubble came about, and he offers no contrasting success stories. He also fails to offer anything but the barest, most surface information. For example, he mentions IdeaLab several times, but never describes who they were, what they did, or whether any of their projects were successful (I assume they must have been, as they are still around, but I don't know since this book never explains).

Do yourself a favor and pick up John Cassidy's Dot.con: How America Lost Its Mind and Money in the Internet Era -- the introduction alone offers more information than the whole of this lousy book. ( )
  giovannigf | Oct 30, 2024 |
20 years later, this remains one of the best depictions of the dot-com culture of its era. Reading it now is like taking a trip down memory lane.

On a bleaker note, many of the failed companies listed here have contemporary successful versions, typically because they were able to replace salaried employees with gig workers. ( )
  bishnu83 | Apr 6, 2021 |
Arrived Lausanne
  LOM-Lausanne | Mar 19, 2020 |
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Not long ago, the world was awash with venture capital in search of the next Yahoo! or Amazon.com. No product, no experience, no technology, no business plan -- no problem. You could still get $40 million from investors to start up your dot-com. And you could get people to work around the clock for stock options and the promise of millions. Then, around April 2000, it all came crashing down. Smart investors, esteemed analysts, and the business press found themselves asking: Who knew people wouldn't rush out to trade in their U.S. dollars for a virtual currency called Flooz? Who knew people wouldn't blow all their Flooz on a used car from the guys at iMotors.com? And who needed a used car from iMotors.com when they could just sit at home and have 40-lb. bags of dog food delivered to them by a sock puppet? F'd Companies captures the waste, greed, and human stupidity of more than 100 dot-com companies. Written in Philip J. Kaplan's popular, cynical style, these profiles are filled with colorful anecdotes, factoids, and information unavailable anywhere else. Together they form a gleeful encyclopedia of how not to run a business. They also capture a truly remarkable period of history. F'd Companies is required reading for everyone involved in the "new economy" -- assuming your severance check can cover the cost.

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