"This was 1999, the pinnacle of dot-com fever, and David Kuo had just been invited to walk through the magic portal. It was a huge Internet start-up called Value America, and in his new job as communications SVP, Kuo would spread their gospel: a new kind of retailing, linking consumers directly to manufactures over the Internet - no more stores or distributors or other middlemen. Ahead for Kuo lay the chance to be part of a new business paradigm.

Not to mention the riches when his stock options bore fruit." "Except the founder and chairman wasn't a twenty something Internet crusader. He was over forty and a successful old-economy CEO. And he kept talking about his new private plane and his plans to run for governor - even President! New investors came on board almost weekly, but whenever Kuo tried out the company's Web site, the items he ordered never seemed to arrive.".

"Dot.bomb is the story of the Internet gold rush as it could only be told by an insider. David Kuo saw it all: the sky's-the-limit optimism, the hundreds of millions of dollars spent in a giddy grab for eyeballs and market share, the investors slavering to be on the inside, the belief that there really were new rules. He also saw what happened when gravity reasserted itself, Wall Street demanded results, and flaws and failures that had been glossed over suddenly loomed huge.

The money was gone, new money was scarce, the CEO was pushed out. In the blink of an eye, Value America crashed back to earth, filed for bankruptcy, and was gone."--BOOK JACKET.