dot.bomb: My Days and Nights at an Internet Goliath

by J. David Kuo

Kuo's resume mentions the CIA and a US senator, but his concern here is his stint as senior vice president of communications at Value America, an on-line superstore that would sell anything to anyone without any overhead, and so was guaranteed to make everyone involved multi-millionaires. He rode it down to the very end. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Internet, Memoir, History, Technology

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Travis Kirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Facinating book. It read like the Enron story in terms of the dilusional nature of those at the top. The failed leader/founder syndrome, in the world of dollars and cents, has an unmerciful way of destroying the founder. This book takes you on a journey beginning with the blind hysteria of becoming rich, followed by the brutal tumble back down to reality. Picture an individual coming down from crack.

By the way, I am going to try to withhold giving five stars to every book that I like a lot. I feel I can be more objective than that. Therefore, if I give four stars to a book believe me I am giving it high marks, and would definitely recommend it, but I am also acknowledging that it doesn't deserve the "THIS BOOK IS THE BESTESS BOOK EVER" rating. That rating should be reserved only for bestess books.

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Average. J. David Kuo is obviously a nice guy, but I spent far too much time reading about his girlfriend for my liking, who then became his wife etc. I'm sure they are all lovely people but that wasn't what I was in it for. On a side note, the geezer that started the company he worked for was a megalomaniacal nutter, but in a fun way, not a Trump way.

[Monzenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good four star read of another failure in the dot com wars. I like the involvement of the main character in the story, though the juicy details of the accounting side left much to be desired. Still a good story.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a first person account of corporate failure if not outright malfeasance.
This tale comes before enron, before theranos and yet is very much the same pattern at work.
When greed and desire outstrip reality this is the inevitable result-a triumph pf wishful thinking bordering on fraud.
Unusually this book includes commentary/rebuttals from the founder/CEO/scam artist responsible for the whole mess-which makes a singular difference from other more recent stories of this type.
Overall it's a nice light read and makes a nice throwback compare and contrast to more current corporate failures.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book covers the rise and unsurprising crash and burn of Value America (don't feel bad, I never heard of them either), which differed from a typical .com boom/bust story in that it had a vision for a inventoryless system (dealers ship directly to customers), hypothetically cutting costs to a bare minimum. Obviously this didn't work, and if you weren't already put off by that first sentence, you might be interested to read this book. The beginning deals with raising the capital to start the company, and while this could be a little dry, I found that it moved right along. The real meat of the book starts when Kuo joins the company and, well, you know how the .com bubble turned out. Getting there is an interesting ride, if hard to recommend for the general reader - but I enjoyed it enough to recommend picking this up if you see it in your local bargain bin.

[Jason Mccue · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good read and a great reminder about how to run a company. You need a stronge leader who can create the vision, someone who can get the funding, someone to help build momentum, and someon who can transition it through its phases. Of course this doesn't have to be the same person and in most cases, like Value America, it should be different people depending on the phase of the company.

This book is really about people and how everyone needs to focus on the same direction if the company has a chance of succeeding.

[Bjorn Hardarson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Found it in an old bookstore, even though old is only related to the INTERNET fast change these days. Interesting to read book about a company that got lots of cash without great plan and even more interesting to see that the he power game of company is more important than those that control, but still people seems often focus more on their own power than prospect the of the company they created even if it ruined it

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love accounts of people who are deluding themselves and this is a perfect example. Really recreates the atmosphere of the doomed turn-of-the-century dot.com boom. My only problem with it is the constant mention of the author's height and ethnicity.

[Elliot Richards · Rating 4 out of 5]

I decided to read this again, and it's still a very good read. Moreso now because a lot of time has passed and it's interesting to see how the future of Internet retailing was envisioned back in 1998 compared to how it is today. It's fascinating and well written.