MySpace just opened new offices in SoMa to try and attract better engineers. I guess that someone forgot to tell Rupert Murdoch that it's not 1999 anymore. You are late to the party old man! Many software engineers simply left San Francisco in 2000 and while few have come back, it's not the same as it was prior to the dot-com bust. Besides, there are much better Web 2.0 companies in San Francisco for software developers to work at than CrapSpace, er, MySpace.
Results tagged “dot-com” from The Daily Nugget
Long gone are the Herman Miller Aeron chairs, now it's bring your own damn chair! The world of dot-com startups is going cheap, forsaking glitz for substance and building real products. Still, without the glitz or crazy stock options, it's hard to justify a big pay cut from established companies and the need to take your own chair to work. Startups are still a young man's game, but times have changed.
I used to work for a company named iMind Education Systems and left back in June of 2000, the company later filed for bankruptcy in February 2001. Many employees decided to work with an attorney to collect wages, 401k, and expenses paid through bankruptcy court. Others didn't. In fact, some ignored doing anything about it altogether except to find another job and forget about it.
Now, 3 years and 10 months later, there are still employees trying to get their 401k money from Citibank! Here's an excerpt of an email that came through on the iMind Refugees newsgroup, a group which I thought was surely dead.
I've finally received my 401k distribution from the City Bank. I worked with one guy from the Labor Depatrment, who helped to resolve the issue. If somebody interested, I can give his tel. number.
That's crazy! Almost four years after the fact and people are still dealing with this shit! The moral of the story: when you have a problem you can either spend a little time and energy now or a lot of time and energy later. The ones that waited for later are going to suffer a much bigger beatdown.
Now, 3 years and 10 months later, there are still employees trying to get their 401k money from Citibank! Here's an excerpt of an email that came through on the iMind Refugees newsgroup, a group which I thought was surely dead.
I've finally received my 401k distribution from the City Bank. I worked with one guy from the Labor Depatrment, who helped to resolve the issue. If somebody interested, I can give his tel. number.
That's crazy! Almost four years after the fact and people are still dealing with this shit! The moral of the story: when you have a problem you can either spend a little time and energy now or a lot of time and energy later. The ones that waited for later are going to suffer a much bigger beatdown.
I received a call from a headhunter today for the first time since June, 2002. This may very well be a sign that the economy is truly starting to pick up. I have no intention on leaving my current position, but it's always flattering. Ah, I remember the good 'ol days when headhunters would call us tech guys almost daily, when you could find a new job literally overnight, and we weren't so much finding our jobs as we were just "choosing" them. It will never be like that again, but I hope we're headed in that direction.
An old, prestigious, and established San Francisco law firm shocked it's employees by announcing it is closing down--a victim of the rise and fall of the new economy. I guess they bet too much on the dot-com boom lasting forever--too bad. Another 1,100 unemployed mofos. Hey, maybe they could get jobs at MoFo.
The ex-CEO of a failed dot-com was sentenced to eleven years in prison and fined almost $3MM for fraud and tax evasion after stealing a mere $4MM from investors. He lured investors with rigged demos and used the money to buy a home, a car, and other "stuff." The story sounded vaguely familiar to me. Damn, iMind allegedly raised $15MM total through its final days--at that rate that's almost 44 years for the mofo that ran that company. Hypothetically speaking, of course.
For all of those in the cheap seats, the First Amendment allows me the freedom of speech and press to maintain this site. It is after all, just a parody of another dead dot-com. Here are some other great dot-com parody sites from Google's directory. My favorite is Microsoff--classic stuff. God bless America!
Upside magazine closed its doors today and Red Herring reorganized to get out of their sweet SOMA office space into cheaper offices in nearby China Basin (near PacBell Park). Damn, I remember going to this kick-ass party hosted by The Industry Standard back "in the dizay". It was a dot-com era extravaganza where the magazine thought it was a dot-com too. As we all know, The Standard is also "adios amigos". Those were the days.
Apparently, the only way to afford to live in the Bay Area is to squat on State or County land and live in a tree. I bet this guy used to work at Pets.com, Petopia, or something and is just down on his luck. I sure do miss the sock puppet. Damn, had I known about this, I would have built a treehouse years ago. I bet it's too late now that officials are on to the scam.
Well, I received this email from an ex-iMinder in response to a group posting in which I said that a person should pull a stick out of their ass:
As for hit a delete key and get the stick out of your ass, that sounds right to me. I like you ex-iminder and hope you are all doing well, making some money and having good sex. mucho amor Brian S
After attempting to decipher this incoherence I came up with this response, but I must confess that I still haven't mastered this new language:
I like you 2 ex-iminder. I likes you wish for moolah and hoes. Bong water deep so wow you swimming hard. I hope all hoes go 4 you too. If helmet and home when you falls off motor bicycle head damage look out now. worry me mucho Fabian G
As for hit a delete key and get the stick out of your ass, that sounds right to me. I like you ex-iminder and hope you are all doing well, making some money and having good sex. mucho amor Brian S
After attempting to decipher this incoherence I came up with this response, but I must confess that I still haven't mastered this new language:
I like you 2 ex-iminder. I likes you wish for moolah and hoes. Bong water deep so wow you swimming hard. I hope all hoes go 4 you too. If helmet and home when you falls off motor bicycle head damage look out now. worry me mucho Fabian G
I was surprised to find out that there are a bunch of ex-iMinders that no longer have a sense of humor. Granted some of these folks came much later in the saga, but it is still disheartening to know that the working wounded are too scarred to laugh.
Like my friend says, it's like the classic line in Hotel California,
"...you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave."
Like my friend says, it's like the classic line in Hotel California,
"...you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave."
Larry O'Brien wrote a Haiku about iMind, the dot-com we both worked at, and it insipired me to make an iMind Haikus page. If you are an ex-iMinder you definitely will enjoy this.
Larry O'Brien wrote a short story about dot-com excess for a cancelled conference appearance. Rather than let the document go to waste, I have posted an excerpt of the story on the iMind Parody site.
On a related note, I saw in the news that stock options are officially coming to an end. That's a news flash! It's only been two years since the bubble burst. I was screaming "show me the money" back in 2000.
Money talks, bullshit walks.
On a related note, I saw in the news that stock options are officially coming to an end. That's a news flash! It's only been two years since the bubble burst. I was screaming "show me the money" back in 2000.
Money talks, bullshit walks.
I was making travel reservations a couple of minutes ago and had a dot-com flashback. A dot-com flashback is much like suffering from a post traumatic stress disorder episode that some war veterans get--the cold sweats, elevated heart rate, disorientation, etc. If you worked at iMind you know what I'm talking about.
Anyway, I was remembering the madness. The fact that we had a dedicated travel staff person for a company of just over 60 people. However, in true iMind fashion, our travel person, Bobbi DiStefano (aka Bobbi Baffoonery), did not actually know how to make travel reservations. It was a crap shoot as to whether you would actually make it back from the trade shows. One day that motherf***er left me stranded in Palm Springs because the return flight was booked from the same airport as the departing flight. Bitch!
It's good to know that those days are over and that I can now make travel reservations while maintaining my sanity. Bobbi, where ever you are, I am sure you are still a lamer.
Anyway, I was remembering the madness. The fact that we had a dedicated travel staff person for a company of just over 60 people. However, in true iMind fashion, our travel person, Bobbi DiStefano (aka Bobbi Baffoonery), did not actually know how to make travel reservations. It was a crap shoot as to whether you would actually make it back from the trade shows. One day that motherf***er left me stranded in Palm Springs because the return flight was booked from the same airport as the departing flight. Bitch!
It's good to know that those days are over and that I can now make travel reservations while maintaining my sanity. Bobbi, where ever you are, I am sure you are still a lamer.
After watching E-Dreams a few weeks back, I thought I'd check out Startup.com. As interesting as this story was, it lacked the energy of E-Dream's Kozmo.com story. Surprisingly, after govWorks filed for bankruptcy, the guys from Startup.com started another company to help dot-com's deal with bankruptcy. That's one smart way to make some money out of the dot-com bust.
I just saw this film called E-Dreams. I didn't realize that the movie was about Kozmo.com when I started watching it and was a bit surprised. Surprised at the amount of funding that Park raised and how quickly it grew. Momentum. They had it. Had the market not gone down they would have completed their IPO and made a lot of mofos wealthy. If they couldn't pull it off, then iMind had no chance. It's a great movie that brought back some of that good ol' dot-com nostalgia.
