This volume offers eyewitness accounts of how self-destructive the Internet business can be is based upon net slaves.com, which Wired sited as "the only site where the "web working poor" can air their feelings". This collection of horror stories, both amusing and not so amusing, documents the real-life stories of those who work the Web, in their own words.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Authors Bill Lessard and Steve Baldwin neatly summarize the operating principle behind NetSlaves: "People are nuts, no matter what profession they're in, but people forced to work like dogs with the carrot stick of stock options and 'untold' wealth dangling under their noses are especially nuts."
If all you know about the Internet business is what you've read in the financial press, then NetSlaves provides a cold slap of reality. For every headline-making company like Yahoo! or Amazon.com, there are hundreds or perhaps even thousands more like the ones Net vets Lessard and Baldwin have worked for. These are the startups that never finish up, companies that hire hundreds of programmers and Web-site designers and techies of all stripes, then merge or downsize or go out of business before anyone can cash in. The authors take the reader on an anthropological expedition through what they call the New Media Caste System. At the bottom rung are the "garbagemen," the guys who have to get the server up and running when it crashes, who have to rush to help the digital morons who can't figure out how to open their e-mail. At the top, of course, are the "robber barons," the guys who really do get mind-blowing wealth and profiles in Wired magazine. For each level, the authors tell an instructive, cautionary tale of life in the new economy.
Although Lessard and Baldwin clearly set out to create revenge journalism, enjoyed by all those who've lived on pizza and Mountain Dew for months on end only to end up with pink slips, those outside the tech universe should enjoy it, too. Revenge may be a dish best served cold, but it's easy to warm up to NetSlaves. --Lou Schuler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Readers who can't bear another glossy magazine profile of Internet IPO kids will welcome this tour through the writhing underbelly of the tech biz. Lessard and Baldwin, who founded a site called www.netslaves.com in 1998, set out to document the depravity and desperation of the Internet economy, which they call the most widely misunderstood business phenomenon of our time. Far from the glamorous world painted by the few Internet winners, the authors contend, the business of technology is largely strapped to the four million or so backs of carpal-tunnel-prone freelancers and real-life Dilberts. To illustrate their point, they provide a guide to the new media caste system, which converts standard industry roles into a hierarchy of "garbagemen," "fry cooks" and "cab drivers." Case studies of disgruntled tech support operators and HTML code writers make for bitterly funny reading. There's cybercop Kilmartin, who burns out after patrolling a Web community for obscene references to goats and blenders, and freelance coder Jane, who was blamed for uploading the wrong verdict to a major O.J. Simpson trial Web site. The sources' names have been changed to protect them from their employers' retribution, but company names are disguised thinly enough to make the book a kind of industry roman ? clef. The billionaire software tyrant "Royster G. Pfeiffer" lords over his Washington-based office campus (which is packed with resentful "perma-temps"), and there's the crash-prone Internet browser developed by "NetScathe." On the whole, this insider's look at the industry offers an amusing antidote to the media's chronic case of Internet hype. (Nov.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
From the snivleing-techie-department.,
By Michael Wootini (North Carolina) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Net Slaves: True Tales of Working the Web (Paperback)
There will be people that write reviews... saying that this book is a whiner's book or that the writers are techie axe grinders. They may say 'name changing is not warranted'. They'll feel smug with these criticisms. But the reality is that the technical world is burning hot which truly proves that technical work is hell. There is a great push to 'become' more efficient. What this really means is 80 hour work weeks or more. This means exploiting the talent of your employees and reorging them often. When you are done with them, you toss them to the side. People become a commodity. Behind all the free soda, snacks, air conditioned rooms, there is a real abuse and exploitation. Sure leave your job for another one. That job will be the same thing. I remember when I liked using computers, now I feel they are a social black hole that slowly sucks the life out of you. If this was a book about artists creating work and them having it ripped from them by corporate goons there would be more sympathy to the writers, but most people don't see that technologists are in fact artists. They create. Welcome to commercialism. But if you can't beat them, join them... This book has finally convinced me to go get that MBA and strive to become one of the last 3 chapters of this book.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
X-treme net disasters sad...but true,
By A Customer
This review is from: Net Slaves: True Tales of Working the Web (Paperback)
Netslaves without a doubt is X-treme, with the capital 'X'. The stories you read within are disturbing. The insiders view of some large hardware, software, and Internet companies makes you wanna run out and Sell, Sell, Sell any and all stock you may have in them.In fact, some of the stories got so bizarre, that I started reacting negatively to the book. Sword-wielding censors? Company heads fleeing justice in Mexico? OJ's guilty? Come on. That, coupled with the mangled corporate names (though anyone with a brain can guess who NetScathe et al really are) seemed to seriously impact the power of the book. My credibility was stretched, and I thought to myself, "Self, this is just another one of those sensationalism books out to shock you out of your money". But I was wrong. By the the time I finished the book, I poked my nose around and found out it was true. All of its true. And then I re-read it, and the realism and bluntness of the writing sucked me in. Netslaves is a great book, because it deals with real people honestly. Real people under enormous (and occasionally bizarre) stress do whacko things, and these guys are there to show you the damage. The world wide web is built on the broken remains of Netslaves, and Bill and Steve give you the view from the coroners office. I'd give it two thumbs up if it weren't for the damn carpal tunnel....
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Blood, Sweat, and Sore Butts,
By A Customer
This review is from: Net Slaves: True Tales of Working the Web (Paperback)
I don't think I've ever read a book like this before - it's sort of like "Pulp Fiction Meets The Net" with shades of "True Confessions" mixed in. This is a quick read, and I've already passed it on to a family member who still harbors the belief that working in the "dot.com" field is a good career choice. I don't know if I'd go quite so far as to say that most Net careers "nasty, brutish, and short", as the authors do, but I do think it's about time that people start looking beyond the hype toward what life in the info-trenches actually entails, and this book is an excellent alternative to all the dot-com glamorizing and boosterism that's out there. Very funny, too - it helps the bitter cautionary medicine go down.
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