Burn Rate, my account of the birth of the Internet industry and the rise and fall of my own Internet business (excerpted as "Bonfire of the Securities," Wired 6.06, page 112), seems to have given many of its subjects a bad moment.
"You are a loser ... and you are looked at as a whiner:-)!! Suck it up ... what's next for you ... a guest spot on Geraldo or Jerry Springer?" taunted AOL's Ted Leonsis in an email.
Isabel Maxwell - who ran Magellan, the search-engine company that figures in my tale - complained bitterly to a reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle about the way I portrayed her family. The reporter called to ask if I really felt comfortable characterizing Robert Maxwell as one of the biggest crooks of the century. Well, I said, there's still a year and a half to go.
I had been regularly emailing David Hayden, Isabel's former husband and the CEO of Magellan, whose portrayal in Burn Rate I had meant to be sympathetic. But he terminated our correspondence after reading the book.
Bob Machinist, my investment banker and the larger-than-life (anti)hero of the Wired excerpt, has stayed uncharacteristically quiet. The one comment passed on by intermediaries was that many people he'd lost touch with have contacted him as a result of the book and the Wired excerpt could only be good for business. Which, in fact, is in character.
Shortly before Burn Rate went to press, Simon & Schuster, the publisher, received a letter on behalf of Jon Rubin, the wealthy 28-year-old who invested in Wolff New Media, from his lawyer Jesse Meer - who also figures not too sympathetically in the book - asking for an advance look at the manuscript. Simon & Schuster respectfully declined. Since the book's publication, we have heard no further word from Rubin or Meer. As for Alan Patricof, Machinist's partner and a legend of venture capital investing - well, one of the firm's younger bankers once told me with great admiration that bad press just rolls off Patricof's back. He's too rich to care, the junior financier said. Not so, it turns out. I have a letter from Patricof's lawyer to prove it.
I'm also hearing from those who believe they ought to have been in the book, including some former employees who sought out The Village Voice to complain their sweat had gone unsung. Then there are the cyberjournalists indignant that their story has been told before they got to tell it. Slate's Jack Shafer, who fancies himself the enfant terrible of the Internet, worked himself into an impressive snit, calling me a "little shit."
My favorite response, however, came from a reporter at Brill's Content. Noah Robischon, an earnest young man, seems to think I made up Burn Rate. "Isn't it true," Robischon demanded prosecutorially, "there were meetings at which you didn't take notes?" But after a worrisome moment of seeing myself branded as the next Stephen Glass, I realized it could be a backhanded compliment: The characters seem too believable. It is unsettling to see the admirable, smart, farseeing (albeit boring) characters of most business memoirs revealed as the buffoons, megalomaniacs, and venal folks they most often are.
I wrote Burn Rate because I thought it was an unlikely, comic, at times absurd story that might make people laugh (and thank their lucky stars they weren't part of). But judging by the torrent of email, nearly everyone in the Internet game has been living that satire known as the start-up. The burn rate experience is legion. It is odd and gratifying to find that I was never alone.
We were surprised and disappointed when plans for this year's Robot Wars (reported in "Die, Robot," Wired 6.08, page 116) collapsed in a storm of litigation between co-owners Marc Thorpe and Steven Plotnicki. "I've been swamped by legal issues which made planning impossible," says Thorpe, who cannot update the www.robotwars.com/ site until the legal battle is settled. According to Plotnicki, Thorpe "tried to buy the license for US$10," he refused, and Thorpe sued. "When the truth emerges it will be clear that Marc is the one responsible for Robot Wars 1998 not happening."
Wired was unable to publish these last-minute developments due to its production schedule. For more details on the (non)event, check the robot-builder discussion forum at www.customforum.com/robotwars/.
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