Digital Hustlers: Living Large and Falling Hard in Silicon Alley [Paperback]

Casey Kait (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 15, 2002

In the last five years of the 20th century, New York's Silicon Alley had come to rival California's Silicon Valley as the new Ground Zero of the computer age. By the turn of the millennium, Alley Internet ventures were responsible for billions in annual revenues, as a generation of talented, untested, bug-dreaming twentysomethings created a quantum surge in e-business investment. But Silicon Alley was different from it's West Coast counterpart: it surfed on a frothy wave of lavish parties, frenzied late-night deal-making, dubiously motivated sex, and inflated expectations. Freshly minted paper millionaires spent their money with abandon, bought fancy cars and multi-million dollar real estate...and watched it all come crashing down in April 2000, when the NASDAQ zeppelin burst and fell at their feet. Digital Hustlers is the first book to document this fascinating moment in time when a wildly creative culture was born, thrived, and then got caught in the headlights of achievement. In oral history form, it brings together the voices of all the most important players - entrepreneurs, hustlers, eccentrics and visionaries - in the most entertaining portrait of "geek chic" ever written. Full of drama, gossip, dreams lost and won, this is that rare business book that also reads like a guilty pleasure.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Oh my God, what happened?" laments a key figure in this informative account of the rise and fall of startup millionaires in "Silicon Alley." Consisting almost entirely of interviews with the digerati of New York City's version of Silicon Valley, this oral history by dot-com veterans Kait and Weiss (of Salon.com and RedFilter.com, respectively) opens circa 1995, when only geeks had e-mail and skeptics believed that the Internet would go the way of the CB radio. But soon dot-com exploits landed on the front page and money started to rain down from venture capitalists. Perhaps the culmination of the mania was the legendary three-month bash for New Year's Eve 2000 thrown by Pseudo.com's Josh Harris (a manic figure who emerges as the Caligula of Silicon Alley). But on April 17, 2000 a date that the dot-commers speak of the way their parents refer to the Kennedy assassination the NASDAQ began its downward spiral. Within a few months, TheGlobe.com began paying its employees with free pizza instead of cash; other startups dissolved their Web sites. It's a sad story that the wistful dot-commers describe as a Garden of Eden-type morality tale: in the beginning the Internet was pure and good, then it was invaded by capitalists who corrupted it for their own sinister designs. Kait and Weiss astutely avoid passing judgment on such beliefs (even when a colleague is admiringly described as the "Henry James of Silicon Alley" and another claims he'll be bigger than Andy Warhol). A good read despite the naivete and arrogance of its dramatic personae, Kait and Weiss's book provides a timely elegy for an extravagant, dying culture.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Silicon Alley, a name coined by young New York City entrepreneurs who developed and expanded the Internet computer industry, grew from a "handful of Internet start-ups" in 1995 to "the fastest growing employer on the East Coast" in 2000. The industry continued to grow until April 2000, when the Nasdaq dropped nearly 300 points; as a result, Silicon Alley companies laid off many employees, canceled IPOs, and, in some cases, went out of business. Weiss, of direct marketing company RedFilter.com, and Casey Kait, an editor at Salon.com, tell the story of Silicon Alley through accounts by key players, among whom are Marissa Bowe, former editor-in-chief of Word.com; John McCabe Calacanis, CEO and founder of Silicon Alley Reporter; Jerry Colonna, cofounder of Flatiron Partners; and Kevin Ryan, CEO of DoubleClick. The first-person accounts give readers access to inside information about development, growth, and crisis in the industry after the 2000 market loss. These accounts are arranged within sections, beginning with "Evangelists and Entrepreneurs," and the authors provide introductory comments to explain the historical context of each. The book offers a unique look at the Internet industry and its major Silicon Alley players. Recommended for business collections in academic and public libraries. Lucy Heckman, St. John's Univ. Lib., Jamaica, NY
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Regan Books; 1st edition (July 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060934522
• ISBN-13: 978-0060934521
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,639,231 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Content interesting but structured badly, September 1, 2001

By 

"apsrose" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Digital Hustlers: Living Large and Falling Hard in Silicon Alley (Hardcover)

The content of this book is interesting and even fascinating at times. However, the way the content is structured makes it difficult to read and understand. Essentially, the authors have conducted many interviews of the key players of Silicon Alley companies in New York. The interviews provide a story of the rise of Silicon Alley from 1995 to 2000. What makes the story so interesting is the rapid rise of the companies such as theglobe.com and then in 2000 the rapid fall. There are many companies stories in the book and also a description of New York culture through-out the period.

The whole book would be more interesting if it had been organised in chapters according to each company. Instead the book is organised by themes like "The New Worker". The chapter then contains partial segments of interviews from many interviews conducted which help to understand the theme. This causes quite a bit of confusion, because it is similar to skipping from one music track to another very quickly . It would have been better for the authors to do as little work as possible an simply presented the interviews as they were created. This would have turned the book into a narrative of easy and historically fascinating reading.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read This Book!, June 27, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Digital Hustlers: Living Large and Falling Hard in Silicon Alley (Hardcover)

In a format that may well be first-of-its-kind, authors Casey Kait and Stephen Weiss have captured the insiders' words about a brief but crucial part of New York dot.com history. One can feel the "characters" of Silicon Alley sitting around a table chatting and gossiping. In totally readable style, the two authors have collaborated on a project that impresses with its uniqueness while being jam-packed with information. I knew very little about the era until reading Digital Hustlers; I now understand it well. This is an extremely well-written and fascinating book about a most unusual time.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars up, hustle, and out!, July 19, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Digital Hustlers: Living Large and Falling Hard in Silicon Alley (Hardcover)

The best non-fiction uses its subject matter to provoke thought of a variety of issues. I found "Digital Hustlers" to be exactly that: a brilliant expose of how the "Gotterdammerung" effect took its toll on all aspects of late-nineties startup culture. The book collects powerful stories from all sides of this deflated, polygonal zeitgeist and presents them with clarity in a modern format.

Being in a German synth-rock band, I found the book's philisophical implications most interesting. History continues to repeat itself and we shall never forget.

Not to end in too heavy-handed of fashion, but I would like to commend Kait and Weiss on their triumph. They have succeeded in capturing a brief but potent era in America's history and exploding it onto the written page.

I found it very interesting.