hackoff.com: An Historic Murder Mystery set in the Internet Bubble and Rubble [Hardcover]

Tom Evslin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 2006

Hackoff.com provides a ringside seat to the fast paced battles when entrepreneurs cross Wall Street. Like a chart of NASDAQ, this mystery is a wild ride.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...Awesome content (this is the book that every entrepreneur from 1997 - 2001 wanted to write)..." -- Feld Thoughts, Sept 18, 2005

"Hackoff.com should be required reading for all financial journalism training programs." -- Tech Trader, December 2005

"If you lived through "the first Internet bubble and rubble", its your story too in many ways." -- Fred Wilson, August 2005 (avc.blogs.com)

"This is the book that every entrepreneur from 1997 - 2001 wanted to write!" -- Brad Feld, September 2005 (feld.com)

"Tom Evslin provides a ring side seat to the fast paced battles and intrigue when entrepreneurs cross Wall Street..." -- Andy Kessler, Author of Running Money and Wall Street Meat

From the Author

People who’ve read the online edition of hackoff.com ask me how much of it is true.

I was the founder and CEO of a company that went public during the first Internet bubble. I did watch our stock inexplicably soar and tumble. I was amazed and amused to be a participant at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. And 9/11 changed me as it changed so many other people.

But hackoff.com is not autobiography. It starts with a dead CEO and I’m still alive to tell the story. There never was a company called hackoff.com; you never could trade HOFC stock. As far as I know, the hacks in the book never happened in real life (although you can never be sure). Other than historical characters and the people identified in the excellent report of the 9/11 Commission, the people in the book are figments of my imagination.

I wrote hackoff.com as a novel because fiction allows me to leave out the dull parts and exaggerate what I found interesting. It’s in the form of an historical murder mystery both because I like to read historical murder mysteries and because the form allows me to make the already fading fabric of those strange times part of the plot.

This is a story told more to amuse and entertain than to inform. As in the tales of retired sea captains, some of the monsters are real; some just things which might have gone bump in the dark.

-Tom Evslin

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 642 pages
• Publisher: dotHill press (March 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0977464601
• ISBN-13: 978-0977464609
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #324,161 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #45 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Thrillers > Technothrillers
  • #55 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Computers & Internet > General

More About the Author

Tom Evslin's career has taken him from nerd to CEO to novelist and consultant with a brief stop as Vermont's Transportation Secretary in the early 1980s.

Recently Tom was volunteer Chief Technology Officer for the State of Vermont. Immediately prior to that he was Chief Recovery Officer for the State responsible for coordinating the state's use of federal stimulus funds and focusing them on the priorities of universal broadband penetration, a smart electrical grid, e-health, and e-education.

Tom's novel "hackoff.com: an historic murder mystery set in the Internet bubble and rubble" is available from Amazon in hard cover or Kindle form. A short story "The Interpreter's Tale" can be downloaded to Kindle. His personal blog Fractals of Change is at blog.tomevslin.com.

Tom was cofounder (with wife Mary), Chairman and CEO of ITXC Corp. The NASDAQ-listed company grew from startup in 1997 to the world's leading provider of wholesale VoIP and one of largest carriers of international voice minutes of any kind by 2004 when it was acquired.

He conceived, launched, and ran AT&T's first ISP, AT&T WorldNet Service. WorldNet popularized all-you-can-eat flatrate monthly pricing for Internet access and forced the rest of the industry, including AOL and MSN, to follow suit. Tom has been blamed and praised for this ever since. He is unrepentant.

At Microsoft, Tom was responsible for the server products now in Microsoft BackOffice including Microsoft Exchange and for Exchange's predecessor Microsoft Mail.

Tom went to Microsoft when key assets of Solutions, Inc. (a software company he founded and he and Mary ran) were sold to Microsoft. In the 1970s Solutions developed the first commercial EFT software for banks. In the 1980s Solutions was the first developer of commercial communications software for the Macintosh.

Tom is on the boards of the Vermont Telecommunications Authority and the Vermont Clean Energy Development Fund. In the private sector, he is a board member of FeedBlitz LLC.

For many years Tom was Policy Chairman of the Voice on the Net Coalition and a member of the organization's Board of Directors.

Tom is an inventor on eight granted US patents.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Maddness of Crowds, April 1, 2006

By 

Ward Good (Richmond, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: hackoff.com: An Historic Murder Mystery set in the Internet Bubble and Rubble (Hardcover)

How many millions of words have been written about the mass psychosis that afflicted the investment and technology worlds at the end of the century will have to be counted by others, however, you will gain a better understanding of how and why that period happened by reading Tom Evslin's novel than by reading any articles or essays. I guess you had to be there to understand the sick joke that was played on all of us that came to be known as the bubble. Tom Evslin was there and Hackoff.com is a fun way to read about it.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Flashback, February 10, 2006

By 

Sarah Okeefe "voracious reader" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: hackoff.com: An Historic Murder Mystery set in the Internet Bubble and Rubble (Hardcover)

The author describes the dot-com insanity and paranoia with glee. An enjoyable read; especially fun as a blook -- the updated model of the Dickensian chapter-a-day.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great read, March 18, 2006

By 

D. Tolli (Wayne, New Jersey USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: hackoff.com: An Historic Murder Mystery set in the Internet Bubble and Rubble (Hardcover)

This book is for you if:
* You like mysteries with twists and turns which require the last chapter to be solved
* You have lived in or are interested in the internet bubble experience. The use of stock price tracking and internet chat rooms is absolutley brilliant and a true reflection of how everyone behaved during that time.
* You just happen to like darn good books!