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Title: dot.bomb: My Days and Nights at an Internet Goliath by J. David Kuo ISBN: 0316507490 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 15 October, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.31
Rating: 5
Summary: Dot.bomb
Comment: Dob.bomb is an absolutely fascinating look behind the scenes of an internet bust. With incredible humor, author David Kuo tells a tale of how an egomaniacal founder, with a penchant for ultimate control, can kill even the best venture. I, too, worked for a "dot.com" company, and for an entrepreneur with qualities very similar to Mr. Winn's (do they just clone these guys??) As I read the book, I just replaced Mr. Winn's name with our CEO's and it told basically the same story. The parallels were incredible. They can't relinquish control because no one understands their baby like they do. They refuse to accept the advice of the very people they hire to take the company to the next level. And in the end, the most amazing thing is the disconnect that these ego driven visionaries have -- they absolutely cannot see how their actions had any effect on the company's failure. As the cops say, "yeah, I know, the other dude did it".
This book was such a fun read that I'm now reading it for a second time and recommending it to all my friends who work in hi tech environments. It is a funny but cautionary tale of what NOT to do. I lived through the same kind of nightmare of optimism-lunacy-panic-chaos-crash that David Kuo describes and he tells it like it is. The book is an absolute hoot, to boot. Buy it. Enjoy it. Learn from it.
Rating: 4
Summary: A good and quite funny read
Comment: dot.bomb: My Days and Nights at an Internet Goliath is David Kuo's first-person account of his tenure at Value America. Kuo's role at Value America was that of Director of Corporate Communications, also known as mouthpiece to the chairman. Value America was an early Internet retailer that crashed and burned quite quickly after its IPO in early 1999. The story of Value America is inherently the story of its founder and chairman, Craig Winn. Winn was the typical big vision salesman, one who could talk and impress people about the big picture, but couldn't execute things effectively. Although Winn saw the potential of the Internet to transform all areas of commerce, especially the retail sector, his visions of greatness and riches never took flight.
Winn's mistake (of which there are many) was that he got caught up in his own hubris. The sad part of the Value America debacle is that it really did have a chance to do something big -- really big. But, as Kuo details in chapter after chapter, it was Winn who often got in the way of the company's ability to achieve its true potential. Kuo is a former political speech writer, and his sometime self-deprecating writing style is engaging and humorous, making the book difficult to put down.
The book starts with Kuo's arrival at Value America, and in just a few pages, we see that Value America had all of the trappings that ensured the demise of most dot.coms; hype, overpaid management who are detached from reality, executive jets, inconsistent and constantly changing strategies, lying and cheating, executive hubris, and a long list of unsatisfied customers. Ultimately, it was the overpowering and unbending personality
of Craig Winn that brought the company down. In deference to Winn, it was much more than just his personality that brought down Value America; however, his personality, which was one of his greatest assets, was also his biggest detriment.
Craig Winn was one part businessman and one part preacher. His close ties with Jerry Falwell and Ralph Reed, as the book details, are no coincidence. Winn's ultimate vision was not just to create a multi-billion dollar company; he also set his sites on both the Governorship of Virginia and, ultimately, the United States presidency. Winn based his presidential aspirations on his meeting and conversations -- which were quite brief
-- with personalities such as William Bennett and Henry Kissinger. (I once met Ray Manzarek, keyboardist for the Doors, in a Los Angeles supermarket, but I left my aspirations for rock and roll stardom in aisle 5. Perhaps if Winn would have done the same, and stayed in touch with reality, he might have been more than a momentary paper billionaire.)
As with any book written by an insider, one has to keep in mind the subjective nature of Kuo's narrative. Nonetheless, as someone who has worked internally and as a consultant at several dot.com startups, I found that much of the book sounded familiar and believable.
Although the story of Value America is somewhat dated in Internet time, it still is a fascinating read of how something so right could go so wrong.
Rating: 5
Summary: Hilarious, poignant, timely tale
Comment: Dot.bomb has it all: a great plot, amazing characters, jaw-dropping twists and some real insights into the Internet Age -- and it's a true story, written by an insider who also happens to be a gifted storyteller. I can't recommend it more highly.
It's a cliche, but I really wasn't able to put this book down. It describes the rise and fall of Value America at a galloping pace that conveys the headlong vertigo of the dot.com gold rush. Its heroes and villains are so much larger than life it's hard to believe they're real people. But Kuo not only has an ear for telling anecdotes and convincing personal details, but an obvious empathy for all of the people he worked with -- including Value America's chairman, a megalomaniac with a heart of gold. Kuo is also refreshingly honest about his own role in this techno-tragicomedy.
The book reads like a combination of Douglas Coupland ("Generation X"), Michael Lewis ("The New New Thing") and Joe Klein ("Primary Colors"). That makes it a riveting read, laugh-out-loud funny, lightly introspective and keenly astute about the intensely political nature of building a business.
Kuo's you-are-there perspective adds extra punch to his surprising conclusion: while you can't believe the hype about the Internet, it really is going to change the world.
When I first picked this book up, I wasn't sure what to expect, or whether I would enjoy reading it given what's happening in the world today. I was pleasantly surprised on both counts. Dot.bomb is both a welcome diversion from today's headlines and a reminder of the positive potential tomorrow holds.
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Title: F'd Companies: Spectacular Dot-Com Flameouts by Philip J. Kaplan ISBN: 0743228626 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 2002 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: Dot.con: The Greatest Story Ever Sold by John Cassidy ISBN: 0060008806 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 04 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Burn Rate: How I Survived the Gold Rush Years on the Internet by Michael Wolff ISBN: 0684856212 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 1999 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: A Very Public Offering: A Rebel's Story of Business Excess, Success, and Reckoning by Stephan Paternot ISBN: 0471007862 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 27 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: 21 Dog Years : Doing Time @ Amazon.com by Mike Daisey ISBN: 0743225805 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 17 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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