A Very Public Offering: A Rebel's Story of Business Excess, Success, and Reckoning [Paperback]

Stephan Paternot (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 2002

The quintessential story of the American dream played out in the late 1990s market mania
In the volatile, fast-paced Internet industry, you can go from being a hero to losing it all in a nanosecond. Stephan Paternot knows this all too well. The poster child for Internet excess, his name became synonymous with the
market mania of the late 1990s. This fascinating book is the inspirational story of how one man's wildest dreams came true as well as the dramatic chronicling of the inception and evolution of an entire industry. Packed with behind-the-scenes details and little known facts, the book reveals the personal and professional motivations that inspired Paternot to found theglobe.com with partner Todd Krizelman at the age of twenty. Theglobe.com marked the beginning of enthusiastic funding, the high-flying stock prices, and incredible IPOs. A Very Public Offering is a positive, inspirational account of a dream that survived the birth and maturation of an industry. It is a riveting narrative that is part adventure story, part romance, and part documentary of an era that business will never experience again.
Stephan Paternot (New York, NY) cofounded theglobe.com in 1994, the company that would be the first to experience IPO euphoria, setting off the outrageous stock and valuation phenomena that followed in the industry. The company has been ranked a top fifty site worldwide by MediaMetrix and has accumulated $30 million in revenues in 2000. Andrew Essex (New York, NY) is the articles editor for Details magazine and continues to publish articles in the New Yorker, Harper's, Elle, Details, Rolling Stone, and the New York Times.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

On November 13, 1998, Internet startup theglobe.com opened on Wall Street with the largest IPO in stock history. Literally overnight, the online community's cofounder, 24-year-old Paternot, became a multimillionaire and dot-com prodigy in the eyes of the adoring media. But, as he documents in this giddy, fast-moving memoir, fortune can turn quickly: less than two years later, theglobe.com's stock price plummeted close to zero, Paternot's personal wealth evaporated and the press savagely attacked him and his partner, Todd Krizelman, as "global poster boys of Internet excess." Paternot briskly recounts the story of his rise and fall, briefly sketching his childhood before he arrived at Cornell University, where he and Krizelman started theglobe.com in 1994. After graduating, they moved the company to New York City's nascent Silicon Alley. Paternot would party all night at trendy Manhattan nightclubs before hopping on a private jet to woo big-name investors. But when the stock price began to tumble, the press blamed Paternot and Krizelman even though, as Paternot points out, theglobe.com was one of the few start-ups actually turning a profit. The sustained attacks took their toll, and in August 2000, with the stock at just $2 a share, Paternot resigned as CEO. Rarely bitter (though the collapse of other dot-coms did give him some vindication), he wisely focuses on the day-to-day mania of the mid- and late '90s "Internet revolution," vividly showing what it felt like to run a brand-new company racing headlong across unknown terrain.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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

Review

"On November 13, 1998, Internet startup theglobe.com opened on Wall Street with the largest IPO in stock history. Literally overnight, the online community's co-founder, 24-year-old Paternot, became a multimillionaire and dot-com prodigy in the eyes of the adoring media. But, as he documents in this giddy, fast-moving memoir, fortune can turn quickly: less than two years later, theglobe.com's stock price plummeted close to zero, Paternot's personal wealth evaporated and the press savagely attacked him and his partner, Todd Krizelman, as "global poster boys of Internet excess." Paternot briskly recounts the story of his rise and fall, briefly sketching his childhood before he arrived at Cornell University, where he and Krizelman started theglobe.com in 1994. After graduating, they moved the company to New York City's nascent Silicon Alley.
Paternot would party all night at trendy Manhattan nightclubs before hopping on a private jet to woo big-name investors. But when the stock price began to tumble, the press blamed Paternot and Krizelman-even though, as Paternot points out, theglobe.com was one of the few start-ups actually turning a profit. The sustained attacks took their toll, and in August 2000, with the stock at just $2 a share, Paternot resigned as CEO. Rarely bitter (though the collapse of other dot-coms did give him some vindication), he wisely focuses on the day-to-day mania of the mid-and late '90's "Internet revolution," vividly showing what it felt like to run a brand-new company racing headlong across unknown terrain." (Sept.) (Publishers Weekly, July 23, 2001)

"Mr. Paternot--whose sole resume entry is chief executive--has written a book about his vertiginous experience as a Web chief, called A Very Public Offering. Sample Chapter heading: 'Theglobe Faces Death and I Become Addicted to the Nightlife'." (The Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2001)

"Their story begins in 1994 at Cornell University, where the two college juniors dreamed up a Web site that hosted discussion groups and homepages. Within a year, they'd attracted a $20 million investment from former Alamo Rent-A-Car chief Michael Egan. Four years later, Theglobe.com debuted on the Nasdaq with that was then the biggest one-day run-up ever. That gave the boys a lotto-size payoff for a company whose business plan could be summed up with the word "community."
As in any good myth, the heroes got their comeuppance, sort of. By August 2000, Theglobe.com's stock was tanking and co-CEOs Krizelman and Paternot were forced out. In those six years, they tasted fame, fortune and a measure of infamy. A Very Public Offering is Paternot's recollection of that fleeting adventure.
Paternot, who reportedly hopes to star in a film version of his book, brings about as much skill to writing (even with the help of Details editor Andrew Essex) as he did to running Theglobe.com. His account is unsophisticated ("As CEO of a public company, you've got to be very careful with what you say,"), his language sophomoric (Wayne Huizenga is "this massive businessman") and his analysis self-serving (he was the victim of hackers, message board touts, and acquisition-crazed Egan and the media).
Still, Paternot's book is interesting in a car-wreck sort of way. Schadenfreude-lovers will enjoy his breathless account of his own rise and fall. And would-be entrepreneurs with time on their hands might want to read the book as a cautionary tale." - Amy Bernstein (The Industry Standard, August 6-13, 2001)

"...the most interesting of these books..." (New Statesman, 10 December 2001)

"...this is one of the best and makes for a terrific Christmas present for anyone of an entrepreneurial bent." (Business Plus, December 2001) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 236 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (September 30, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471250856
• ISBN-13: 978-0471250852
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,607,678 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

STEPHAN PATERNOT is the founder and general partner of the Actarus Funds. Founded in 2001, these angel investor funds provide seed capital to Internet 2.0 start-ups. Prior to this he cofounded one of the first Internet community sites, theglobe.com in 1994. The company set stock market history when it went public in 1998 with a record setting IPO pushing the company valuation to over $1 Billion. Over a six-year span the company grew to over 300 employees with the website becoming one of the top thirty sites in the world with over 17 million users. In 1999 Stephan won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award and in 2001 published "A Very Public Offering", a non-fiction business book detailing his experience at theglobe.com. Before founding the company Stephan attended Cornell University where he earned a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science. Prior to this Stephan grew up in Switzerland, the United Kingdom and briefly the United States for the first eighteen years of his life.

Beyond his duties at the Actarus Funds, Stephan sits on the board of the Heineman Foundation, based in New York, and on the board of it's sister organization the Heineman-Stiftung, based in Berlin. The aims of the foundations are to give financial support to educational, artistic, cause based and scientific non-for profit institutions. Stephan also sits on the board of the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP.org), the largest national non-for profit organization dedicated to supporting independent filmmakers. Stephan currently resides in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A good story not well told, September 5, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: A Very Public Offering: A Rebel's Story of Business Excess, Success, and Reckoning (Hardcover)

Now that the dust has settled, the volatility of the stock market during the dot-com boom is a memory that is already disappearing in the rear-view mirror of our collective conscious. It is time for the stories and histories to be told - the recent film Startup.com chronicled the rise and fall of, as you might have guessed, a dot-com startup; this book from Stephan Paternot, cofounder of theglobe.com, is ostensibly in the same vein.
After a prologue talking about the euphoria of IPO day (on which theglobe.com's share price jumped by 1000% before closing up 700% for the first day), Paternot (with a little help from a ghost-writer) talks the reader through his early life, up until his entry into college at Cornell, and the founding of his company. I say, "talks through his life" - that is precisely the tone of the book. It comes across as more than a little rushed, though the story is consistently gripping enough that it scarcely matters that the author's writing style would not be out of place in a Dick and Jane story. There is no doubt that Paternot and his friend and business partner, Todd Krizelman, were in the game right from the very beginning, and created what was probably a terrific Web site that became the Apple Macintosh's number one online community destination. For a pair of 20-somethings, this was a wonderful achievement, and Paternot is rightly proud of his company and its achievements. Some might say a little too proud, and the hubris in the book is sometimes breathtaking; for example, it might surprise aficionados of the internal combustion engine to hear that apparently the Internet is the most important human invention since movable type... though there is little doubt in my mind that the author's enthusiastic knack for hyperbole was probably what allowed him to convince a number of business big-shots to buy into his vision (most notably the ex-Chairman of Alamo Rent-A-Car, Michael Egan).
The book continues on, talking a great deal about stock price movement, and betraying the author's bitterness that theglobe.com was never quite so over-priced as so many other dot-coms (theglobe.com was one of the first companies whose value slid dramatically). Dust-jacket hints about salacious stories of an unconventional rebel wild-child flying in the face of the business establishment are few and far between, unfortunately - I was hoping for a few more tales of bacchanalian debauchery, but Paternot's life doesn't sound too different to that of most young, professional Manhattanites.
Nonetheless, it's certainly an interesting read by a talented person - that talent may not be in the literary field, but then you would hardly read the autobiography of Richard Branson and grumble about lack of literary merit. Ultimately, though, the book fizzles out in a rather unsatisfying way, and I was left with the overwhelming sensation that it was as if the company had never really existed... Perhaps it is fitting, then, that despite Paternot's pride in the fact that his company was still operating at the time of publication, all that is left of theglobe.com today is a message on the Web site: "In 1995, theglobe.com confirmed the Internet's power to connect people worlds apart. Unfortunately, after six amazing years, theglobe.com closed its doors on August 15, 2001... Thank you for your patronage and for the incredible support over the years. Sincerely,
theglobe.com"

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great idea. Poor execution., November 15, 2001

By 

Jad (TJ) Duwaik - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Very Public Offering: A Rebel's Story of Business Excess, Success, and Reckoning (Hardcover)

While reading a Very Public Offering, I was terribly disappointed and planned on coming to Amazon to pan the book. But, when I came here, I was taken aback by the virtiol in some of the comments. So, let me temper the criticism by stating that there is a *VERY* good story here. That said, the presentation is flawed on numerous levels and I'm not sure if blame should be placed on Essex (the co-writer) or Paternot. But since Stephen may be thinking of turning his book into a movie, here's some comments about the book's structure.

First off, every character in this book, save for Paternot and his dad, come across as two dimensional. While most minor characters can be drawn this way, Todd, Stephen's mom, and Stephen's girlfriend need character arcs. They need to have their own struggles in this story, which may require a subplot or two.

Addressing this problem may fix another problem: creating empathy for the other characters. Obviously, this book is told from Paternot's perspective, but it would be more enjoyable -- and educational -- if the narrator had an omniscient perspective. In other words, other characters should be presented with their motivations. For example, Paternot describes his sales staff as being greedy bastards, rather than understanding (and presenting) their positions.

Second, the book starts with the day theglobe.com goes public. Unfortunately, this creates a flawed structure that requires a cheap device to sustain tension, i.e., at the end of every chapter, Stephen reminds us that he's going to lose everything. But, that knowledge is gained from the future, not from the conflict that kicks off this story.

Instead, the story should begin when Stephen meets some guy on a plane (can't remember his name, but he's involved with Hollywood). Then, the conflict is Stephen has lost all his money and what is he going to do about it. That creates an obvious question, how did he get the money? Then THAT kicks off theglobe.com story, the rise and then the eventual fall. And he doesn't have to artificially remind us that he's going to lose the money since the conflict already does that.

Finally, and most annoyingly, the writing is trite. Either Paternot or Essex would have done well to read "On Writing Well" before working on this book. Unfortunately, it's hard to pin down exactly why the writing is so annoying and so I'm hard pressed to come with examples. Perhaps what makes the writing trite is Paternot's writing voice, which actually comes through with surprising clarity. Perhaps the structure is just so bad that it amplifies the worst of his voice rather than illuminating the best of it.

It's an enjoyable, but slightly frustrating, read. (...)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Honest Offering, July 10, 2011

By 

dmichaelc - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Very Public Offering: A Rebel's Story of Business Excess, Success, and Reckoning (Paperback)

A Very Public Offering is a unique guidebook on the peaks and pitfalls of the roller-coaster that is entrepreneurship. No-one tells this kind of story - an honest and sincere tale of a young CEO's very personal experience. It takes into account everything that happens in Paternot's life while pushing forward as a pioneer in an impossible time when little was understood about the internet and online communities. This book should be read by young entrepreneurs in the online space and is proving very helpful to me, a fellow founder of a community website.