Word: dotcoms
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2000
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Even more cruel, of course, is when the paycheck stops too. Just ask the 140 former employees at APBnews.com a Wall Street- based crime-reporting website that hired reporters for a salary in the low $40,000s--very low for a New York City dotcom--plus a meager 500 to 1,000 options. Once again, they turned out to be worthless when the site ran out of cash. As with most dotcom firings, the end was as swift as it was ignominious. News editor Jim Edwards returned from a vacation in Amsterdam to find his company had collapsed...
While Edwards is still looking for a job, a dozen rehired employees are keeping the site alive as its owners make one last bid to stave off bankruptcy. It's hard for even the most radical revolutionary to keep the faith under such circumstances. "I would go to a dotcom again," says reporter Joe Beaird, "but once you see your company go under overnight, you know how it really is. And it screws...
...Crotty is back in the consulting business with no regrets. Her only beef is with venture capitalists, the moneymen who she believes are responsible for most dotcom failures. She thinks they push sites into an early grave by forcing them to become too big, too fast. "I've been burned by the culture of stupid growth that VCs have fostered," she says. "Some businesses ought to grow organically. You can't just add water and expect to compete in the mass market...
...fair to say the dotcom hubris of a few years ago has gone, replaced by an almost paranoid fear of being the next company to go under. Cautionary tales circulate like computer viruses. Most often cited is Boo.com the European fashion website that collapsed last month under the weight of poor design, lousy customer service and clueless founders who threw excessively lavish parties. "Everyone's afraid of what happened to Boo," says San Francisco Web designer Kathleen Craig...
Guessing who's going to be next has become a kind of morbid party game. It has given rise to the dotcom dead pool, a highly popular website run by 24-year-old New Yorker Philip Kaplan (found at the X-rated address F_____dCompany.com) Launched on Memorial Day, it has already received more than 80,000 sign-ups. Kaplan's secret: besides running sweepstakes on the big losers, his site has quickly become the central rumor mill of the Internet economy. Human-resources departments scour it for tips on where to send the headhunters next, and analysts check...