Burn Rate: How I Survived the Gold Rush Years on the Internet - Hardcover

Wolff, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684848813 ISBN 13: 9780684848815

Publisher: Pocket Books, 1998

Synopsis

For much of the 1990s, starting up a business on the Internet offered young go-getters with a taste for risk the fastest route to glittering prosperity. Our light-speed economy has made possible a new American dream, to take an idea overnight from the kitchen table to hundreds of millions of dollars in market value. But the desperate Internet entrepreneur knows every day, every night-- that the chances of success and survival dwindle at the same rate as the cash evaporates. Make the right deals, announce the right products at the right time, and the investors will beat down your doors with money. Falter, and the venture capitalists will eat you alive. Michael Wolff was one of the first to see the potential of the Internet and one of the pioneers of new media. As he labored to build his own company, Wolff, a former journalist, knew he had stumbled on the seminal business story of the 1990s. "Burn Rate" is about the heart-in-your-throat struggles of being an entrepreneur. It is about witnessing an industry being born: the founding of Wired magazine, the launch of Time Warner's much-touted Pathfinder, the conflict between content centered on the East Coast and technology on the West Coast, the rise of the search engines, the dominance and dysfunctionality of America Online, and the thud of Microsoft stumbling and falling down on the Net. In the precarious world of the Internet, where income is a rosy projection and profit little more than a hope and a prayer, a company is no better than the confidence it radiates to its potential partners. After the freewheeling early years of the World Wide Web, the financial prospects of fledgling Web businesses collectively dropped in one stunning month when Wired, the most famous Internet company, failed to launch its stock. Wolff found himself at the head of a rapidly expanding company with seven weeks of capital remaining, trapped between the insatiable needs of his business and the chilling machinations of his investors. With the clock ticking, his only hope was to strike a winning deal. With mordant wit, "Burn Rate" portrays life on the bleeding edge of capitalism-- a realm where your savior, the venture capitalist, may also be your undoing. A Faustian figure, the venture capitalist reveals to Michael Wolff the secret workings of business, as well as the human dimensions of how companies are made, bought, and sold. But the price he asks in return is steep. He never risks too much of his own money but makes sure that he will profit best and first from the entrepreneur's work. As Wolff builds his business, you'll get to know the geeks, billionaires, weasels, and, of course, visionaries he meets along the way. Louis Rossetto, the unemployed expat who creates Wired. Walter Isaacson, the prince of Time Warner, who throws the resources of America's largest media company behind the Web. The boy investor, the "dumb money" who backs Wolff's company. Halsey Minor, the executive recruiter who founds a publishing empire on the Net. The CMP boys, the computer magazine publishers who are desperate to get into the Internet game. Robert Maxwell's children, whose high-flying company is one of the first bubbles to burst on the Internet. Even Barry Biller, who advises Wolff that getting in on the ground floor is good only if you're still standing in the end. Wolff discovers, much to his own consternation, that his work, inspiration, and imagination entitle him to no more than a minor share of his own company's potential wealth. And, in the end, he may only be along for the ride.

About this title

Review:

Journalist Michael Wolff is a recognised pioneer in the business of cyberspace who has been developing products and services for the online world since the dark ages of 1994. During the following years however, not all the activities he engaged in nor all the people he dealt with left a pleasant taste in his mouth--although his cumulative adventures certainly have been very lucrative. In Burn Rate: How I Survived the Gold Rush Years on the Internet Wolff pulls few punches as he candidly and methodically recounts the single steps forward and multiple steps back that marked his experiences while trying to transform a fledgling print media enterprise into a towering New Media colossus. After developing a series of "NetGuide" books that proved highly successful he attempted to transfer the concept to a variety of online offshoots and in the process collaborating with Wired magazine, Time-Warner's Pathfinder, the late Robert Maxwell's media empire, AOL, assorted venture capitalists, sundry competitors and numerous would-be partners. Burn Rate is a fascinating tale that might best be characterised by the old adage that warns us to "be careful what we wish for, for we just might get it". --Howard Rothman

Review:

Kurt Andersen columnist at "The New Yorker" "Burn Rate" is the real deal: a smart, thoughtful, funny, knowing, clear-eyed, candid and altogether exhilarating insider's chronicle of the new media business -- that is, the new media "business." If there's more honest and entertaining book on the digital revolution, I haven't seen it.

Amy Cortese"Business Week""Burn Rate" is a hilarious and frightening account of the life of an Internet startup.

Peter Martin"Financial Times"Wolff has given us the best account of both the lure and the frustration of the Internet.

Deborah Stead"The New York Times""Burn Rate" has a terrific feel for the crazy deals, the characters and the clashing bicoastal cultures of the Internet.

Peter McGrath"Newsweek,.".the alternately hilarious and appalling story of Wolff's efforts to take his small Web publishing company into the big time by courting investors.

Michael Lewisauthor of "Liar's Poker" and "Trail Fever""Burn Rate" is a delight to read. Michael Wolff shows that, in addition to a great deal of junk, the Internet may yet produce literature.

Kurt Andersencolumnist at "The New Yorker""Burn Rate" is the real deal: a smart, thoughtful, funny, knowing, clear-eyed, candid and altogether exhilarating insider's chronicle of the new media business -- that is, the new media "business." If there's more honest and entertaining book on the digital revolution, I haven't seen it.

Peter McGrath "Newsweek" ...the alternately hilarious and appalling story of Wolff's efforts to take his small Web publishing company into the big time by courting investors.

Deborah Stead "The New York Times""Burn Rate" has a terrific feel for the crazy deals, the characters and the clashing bicoastal cultures of the Internet.

Amy Cortese "Business Week""Burn Rate" is a hilarious and frightening account of the life of an Internet startup.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0684848813
• ISBN 13: 9780684848815
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272