Customer Reviews

Digital Hustlers: Living Large and Falling Hard in Silicon Alley

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This book is snippets of conversations from people who were influences in the .com era. Unfortunately, there are so many people, I have no idea who JOHN is or what project he was related with. And I don't care. The book does nothing to tell a story. Its not really a book...its more like journal someone would use to write a book.

I am very interested in the real-life stories of .com businesses...how they got started, how big they got and how they fell from grace.

This is not one of those books.

This 'book' is nothing but a collection of stutters from too many people. There is no central character to follow. Its really hard to stay motivated in reading this.

I received a pre-release version of this book and looked forward to reading it because I have been interested in learning more about the stories of the people behind the internet phenomenom. Weiss and Kait tell the story of the people who lived through the rise and fall of the Net through interesting anecdotes that share the interviewees experiences. The writers clearly capture the story. Their respective backgrounds allow them to tell the story as insiders without the self-promotion which plagues most CEO-told stories. It's a great story.

As a 5 year veteran of the ecommerce field, albeit in the upper midwest, I found it refreshing to read the insiders viewpoint from the other end of the ecom ocean. Having dealt with several of the individuals/or their companies over the course of my career, it reconfirmed my conviction that so much of the ecom explosion was just so much smoke and mirrors. Kait and Weiss, (neither of which were 'lower level workers' in their respective companies, for what it's worth), have produced a well-written, insightful document of this slice of American business history.

Weiss and Kait have written the greatest book about Silicon Alley tycoons I have recently read. Kait and Weiss are truly the Woodward and Bernstein of the year. The book has many insights. For example, when TheGlobe.com started paying their workers with pizza, you really got the feeling like maybe, even though pizza is good, it isn't as good as actual money. And Josh Harris really went a little overboard with that three-month party. Two months would have been enough! Was that why the Nasdaq crashed on April 17--a day that will live in infamy? Weiss and Kait think it might have been a factor. I recommend this book to anyone who lives in Manhattan and used to work for an Internet company that is now out of business and is under 25 and is unemployed and doesn't think it would be fun to be paid with pizza!