Customer Reviews

The Dot-Com Debacle and the Return to Reason

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I had high expectations when I first picked this up, especially after having read the other on-line reviews. However, after having read this "book", I would question the credentials of the author. It is obvious that the author thinks highly of himself - I wager he is the only one who does. I wonder where he received his degree - if he has one. I was extremely disappointed. His science was poorly constructed and his conclusions were mundane. I am sorry that I spent the money.

I read about this book in the Harvard Business School Review when it was named one of the Recommended business books of 2002. THE DOT COM DEBACLE reminded me of Riesman's THE LONELY CROWD. Both have fluid prose, though lengthy in an academic sort of way, but this is not to say it is dull. Like THE LONELY CROWD, Nevaer divides his chapter with the "This is what I'm about to say, and there, I've just said what I said I'd say, so let's review" approach popular in graduate courses. It also approaches the discussion from an interdisciplinary angle, which is terrific for achieving the "bigger picture." For example, how Alfred Kahn's "tyranny of small decisions" applies to the decimation of independent booksellers because of e-commerice is riveting: it makes one understand why certain economic principles transcend technology. If this makes the book feel scientific its very structure imparts a suggestion of seriousness and gravitas. Recent books that use the same approach is Robert Putnam's BOWLING ALONE: THE COLLAPSE AND REVIVAL OF AMERICAN COMMUNITY. To be sure, the book isn't for everyone, but it is a solid analysis of what went wrong and why it went wrong: the dot-commers believed they could defy the laws of economics and this hubris was its undoing. This is, by far, the best book on the subject I've read.

I know that there's an old theory that an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of keyboards could have written the works of Shakespear, but Nevaer fails to hit the mark of simian literary here. It's quite boring and his science is faulty, he often states the obvious and his conclusions are subjective and not based on true fact. I can't believe they would consider this a text book.

This is simply the best book that examines the dot-com speculative bubble. When the Harvard Business School named it one of the "Recommended" business books of 2002. I just had to read it. And I am so pleased that I did: the book explained in clear terms exactly why the shameless hype sold to investors by CNBC was destined to end dismally. The "keys" offered by Nevaer should be carved over the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchanges -- to keep Wall Street honest.

Having worked for four years in Silicon Alley (New York) I saw it all. This is the first book that, by applying fundamental concepts from economics, shows why the "New Economy" was hype: the laws of economics had not bee suspended by the hype. It then shows why the online industries that are successful are the ones that conform to simple laws of economics. Breathtaking in scope, Nevaer traveled from Tokyo to San Francisco, from Barcelona to New York, from brunches with movers and shakers of online porn to hanging out in the Nevada desert (whether at Burning Man or to check out an Amazon's warehouse). Chapter after chapter the negative impacts (defined as "inferior societal outcomes") are analyzed, whether it takes the form of misguided censorhip of the Internet, or the technological threat to music copyright, or simple civil rights by the "ruined" San Francisco city government. I wish this book had been around back in 2000! But at least it's out now -- and the expositions are laid out masterfully, clearly and in language that engages the reader with a its fluid prose.

What are the chances that the only negative reviews were submitted on the same day? It's clear that it's a student who didn't do well in class. As the Harvard Business School concluded, THE DOT COM DEBACLE is clearly the definitive book about the dot-com bubble burst! It is an excellent discussion.

It's wordy, full of rhetoric and jargon, and the author is a pseudo-intellectual supercilious know it all that knows nothing. The book runs around in circles and states some blatant facts that anybody with a 3rd grade education could have gotten. I think the positive reviews given by other readers must have been from either himself (the author) or from friends trying to pump it up to be something other than the major flop it is. I'd avoid this book at all costs. Here, I'll sum it up for you: The dot-bomb happened because people didn't have a business plan for making money.