Synopses & Reviews
Michael Wolff's wickedly funny chronicle of his rags-to-riches-to-rags adventure as a fledgling Internet entrepreneur exposes an industry powered by hype, celebrity, and billions of investment dollars -- and notably devoid of profit-making enterprises.
As he describes his efforts to control his company's burn rate -- the amount of money the company consumes in excess of its income -- Wolff offers a no-holds-barred portrait of unaccountable successes and major disasters, including the story behind Wired magazine and its fanatical founder, Louis Rossetto; the rise of America Online, perhaps the most dysfunctional successful company in history, and the humiliating inability of people such as Bill Gates to untangle the intricacies of the Web.
Review
Peter McGrath Newsweek ...the alternately hilarious and appalling story of Wolff's efforts to take his small Web publishing company into the big time by courting investors.
Review
Deborah Stead The New York Times Burn Rate has a terrific feel for the crazy deals, the characters and the clashing bicoastal cultures of the Internet.
Review
Amy Cortese Business Week Burn Rate is a hilarious and frightening account of the life of an Internet startup.
Review
Peter McGrathNewsweek...the alternately hilarious and appalling story of Wolff's efforts to take his small Web publishing company into the big time by courting investors.
Review
Peter Martin Financial Times Wolff has given us the best account of both the lure and the frustration of the Internet.
Review
Kurt Andersen columnist at The New Yorker Burn Rate is the real deal: a smart, thoughtful, funny, knowing, clear-eyed, candid and altogether exhilarating insider's chronicle of the new media business -- that is, the new media "business." If there's more honest and entertaining book on the digital revolution, I haven't seen it.
Review
Michael Lewis author of Liar's Poker and Trail Fever Burn Rate is a delight to read. Michael Wolff shows that, in addition to a great deal of junk, the Internet may yet produce literature.
Synopsis
From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Fire and Fury and Siege: Trump Under Fire--Michael Wolff's wickedly funny chronicle of his rags-to-riches-to-rags adventure as a fledgling Internet entrepreneur exposes an industry powered by hype, celebrity, and billions of investment dollars, and notably devoid of profit-making enterprises. As he describes his efforts to control his company's burn rate--the amount of money the company consumes in excess of its income--Wolff offers a no-holds-barred portrait of unaccountable successes and major disasters, including the story behind Wired magazine and its fanatical founder, Louis Rossetto; the rise of America Online, perhaps the most dysfunctional successful company in history, and the humiliating inability of people such as Bill Gates to untangle the intricacies of the Web.
About the Author
Michael Wolff writes a weekly column about media for New York magazine and is a founding columnist of the Internet business magazine The Industry Standard. He is the creator of the bestselling NetGuide and the thirty-title series of NetBooks. He is the author of White Kids and the coauthor of Where We Stand, which became a multipart PBS television series. He lives in New York City.
Table of Contents
ContentsPreface
One A Diamond As Big As the Ritz
Two How It Got to Be a Wired World
Three The Board Meeting
Four The Art of the Deal
Five Internet Time
Six Something for Nothing
Seven A Working Relationship
Eight The Twenty-First-Century Corporation
Nine Exit Strategy
Ten Past as Prologue
Acknowledgments