Philip J. Kaplan's "F'd Companies: Spectacular Dot-Com Flameouts" is too raw a book to make it onto most business school reading lists. Which is a shame, because there are gems within it.
In May 2000, Kaplan created a Web site with an unprintable name that tracks corporate demises and allows frustrated employees and ex-employees to vent their spleens. The book is a sampling of new economy inanities from his site.
It's a quick read. More than 100 firms are featured in 180 pages, which include a skippable 13-page introduction. There is not a lot of analysis as to why each venture failed, but a fair criticism would be to ask why most of them were funded at all.
Kaplan often includes the initial amounts of financing each generated, no matter how off-key the ideas were. And in a nice humanistic touch, he also often records how many employees lost their jobs when the company finally went belly-up.
What the book lacks is a glimpse at the business plans. But even without these, the sheer number of firms sounding the same note – that advertising/a locked-in customer base/simplifying tasks that didn't need to be simplified -- would generate untold revenue. For any one firm, with one business plan, this might make sense. But it's staggering to see an entire book filled with companies banking on the same shaky premises.
Often, the book reads as an extended "I told ya so." It's a rough message, and Kaplan's smarmy tone doesn't do the book any favors. Between his favorite f-adjective, and his preoccupation with self-love, it's easily a PG-13 read. But for all Kaplan's crudeness in several places the book is legitimately funny. His review of HeavenlyDoor.com had me howling.
Despite its faults, the book is a fine chronicle of a time when the business community went collectively insane, throwing millions of dollars at business plans consisting mostly of saliva and tissue paper. Yes, it's been said before, but anyone who has spent time on America’s roadways has seen more than his or her fair share of automobile accidents. Yet as a group we will still slow down and rubberneck for each fresh event.
If there's going to be a second Internet wave – and why not? the economy has to rebound sometime, and the medium's not going away – both innovators and investors may want to read this.
See you in the next gold rush.
To respond to the opinions in this column, please contact rlevey@primediabusiness.com.
