The Dot.coms

hese companies have become notorious, and with good reason. They came out of nowhere, offering thousands of well-paying jobs, making their founders rich and representing a glamorous working lifestyle on the cutting edge (whatever that means). Then, they started dropping like flies, the unemployment lines were stretching around the corner and investors lost billions.

Fact: Most (but not all) dot.coms got it all wrong (but you may have figured that out already).

Myth: Dot.coms represent the Internet as a whole

Dot.coms got it wrong because they misunderstood the nature of the Web. Most of them mistakenly assumed that the rules of American big business in the brick and mortar world also applied online. They rented expensive offices and filled them with well-paid, salaried employees. They spent big bucks on real-world marketing and fancy launch parties. And in the end, they provided a very expensive big-city business that a few guys on the countryside could have created from their garage, on a shoestring budget.

Far from being dead, the online business world proved something invaluable to all of us: the Internet is truly a place where equal opportunity exists, and where quality and innovation prevail.