Items related to Burn Rate: How I Survived the Gold Rush Years on the...
Synopsis
This is the story of the strange and surreal world in which companies are valued only in terms of their promise and their hype, because no-one knows who is going to win the battle for control of the Internet.
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Review
Michael Wolff, the author of NetGuide, one of the first major guides to the Net, gives you a tour of this medium that could best be described as "Alice's Adventures Through the Monitor." Burn Rate is the story of Wolff's transition from journalist to entrepreneur in the Internet business--a business in which the investment elite beat down doors to invest vast sums of money in companies whose chief product seemed to be red ink. Wolff reports that what was being bought and sold was not technology, content, or even concepts. It was the potential to be in on something very cool that may one day be sold to somebody else--despite even more red ink.
Wolff's story could easily have been bitter but is instead both fascinating and hilarious. Wolff's money-losing company's negotiations with Magellan--a search-engine company that Wolff eventually discovers is also financially unstable--are comical. The scene where key big shots from a major publisher fall all over Wolff in their eagerness to buy an all-but-worthless name and database are a complete farce. Wolff is by no means above showing his own foibles. Some of the book's best parts are where he shows himself swept up in the intoxicating flow of a deal and calls home to report developments to his wife. She promptly translates the nonsense into sobering reality.
Wolff takes plenty of time off from his personal journey to explore significant events in the development of cyberculture, such as the transition of Louis Rosetto from a least-likely-to-succeed publisher into the creator of the revolutionary Wired magazine. He chronicles the emergence of America Online from dark horse to dominance, while the efforts of companies expected to be major contenders fade into the background.
His candid view shows it all--the oddball characters in expensive shirts and T-shirts, the crazy dealing, the exhilaration, the heartbreak, and the fear. This would be a wonderful work of satirical fiction if it weren't actually true. --Elizabeth Lewis
From the Back Cover
Michael Wolff's wickedly funny chronicle of his rags-to-riches-to-rags adventure as a fledgling Internet entrepreneur exposes an industry powered by hype, celebrity, and billions of investment dollars -- and notably devoid of profit-making enterprises.
As he describes his efforts to control his company's burn rate -- the amount of money the company consumes in excess of its income -- Wolff offers a no-holds-barred portrait of unaccountable successes and major disasters, including the story behind Wired magazine and its fanatical founder, Louis Rossetto; the rise of America Online, perhaps the most dysfunctional successful company in history; and the humiliating inability of people such as Bill Gates to untangle the intricacies of the Web.
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- PublisherORION MASS MARKET PAPERBACK
- Publication date1999
- ISBN 10 0752826069
- ISBN 13 9780752826066
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages320
- Rating
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Burn Rate: How I Survived the Gold Rush Years on the Internet
Published by
ORION MASS MARKET PAPERBACK, 1999
ISBN 10: 0752826069
ISBN 13: 9780752826066
Used
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Condition: Very Good. Book is in Used-VeryGood condition. Pages and cover are clean and intact. Used items may not include supplementary materials such as CDs or access codes. May show signs of minor shelf wear and contain very limited notes and highlighting. 0.49. Seller Inventory # 0752826069-2-3
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Burn Rate: How I Survived The Gold Rush Years On The Internet
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Burn Rate: How I Survived The Gold Rush Years On The Internet
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Burn Rate: How I Survived The Gold Rush Years On The Internet
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Condition: Very Good. Shipped within 24 hours from our UK warehouse. Clean, undamaged book with no damage to pages and minimal wear to the cover. Spine still tight, in very good condition. Remember if you are not happy, you are covered by our 100% money back guarantee. Seller Inventory # 6545-9780752826066
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Burn Rate: How I Survived the Gold Rush Years on the Internet
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Condition: Good. This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has soft covers. In good all round condition. Seller Inventory # 9117284
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Burn Rate: How I Survived The Gold Rush Years On The Internet
Published by
Orion Publishing Co, United Kingdom, London, 1999
ISBN 10: 0752826069
ISBN 13: 9780752826066
Used
Paperback
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Michael Wolff was a journalist and writer; in 1998 he is a journalist and writer again. But in the first half of the '90s he was an Internet entrepreneur, Chairman and CEO of Wolff New Media. This is Wolff's story. BURN RATE is hugely informative about the world of the net and the web, search engines, closed systems, online pornography; it is also incredibly funny. As readable as a novel, BURN RATE is an all too human story of one man, at first idealistic and naive, then corrupted and increasingly cynical, and eventually burned out and tired, and of a world that bears as much resemblance to the school playground (not least in the age of it's major players) as it does to the world of conventional businesses. If there is one book which tells us about what is going on in the complex and confusing struggle for the future of the Internet it is this one. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Seller Inventory # GOR001272643
Quantity: 3 available