OT: Nominum/UltraDNS/etc. rumor-mongering on F*ckedCompany

[ray at doubleclick.net]

On Sat, 7 Jul 2001, Jim Reid wrote:

> Don't believe everything you hear on the internet, especially the
> stuff on f*ckedcompany.com. After Nominum featured on this
> somewhat less than accurate web site a few ambulance chasers got
> in touch offering to find jobs for staff or buy our office
> equipment. Since the rumours were false -- we were actually hiring
> at the time -- we decided to decline those offers and stay in
> business instead. :-)

The comment about reckless rumor-mongers throwing gasoline on the
fires in Silicon Alley/Valley for personal Justice or perhaps some
Nihilist streak or even for Entertainment value on F*ckedCompany ...
absolutely, that is a valid observation.

But the unfortunate fact is, too much of the information on FC and
DotComScoop *is* dead-on, often down to exactly what percentage will
be axed where, what offices, what the termination packages are, and
who are the worst-behaved (weasel) managers during the Last Days. With
so many nervous dot-com employees reading and posting to FC/DCS/et. al
there is a veritable TROVE of juicy tidbits falling into Kaplan and
Ben Silverman's hands every day (you might substitute "fecal matter"
for tidbits depending on whether you are one of the managers getting
slammed in the forums).

As for the idiotic/childish postings in the forum and occasional bad
scoop, hey it's a package deal. After about 5 minutes of working at a
dot-com you know to pay attention to rumours because they're often
more valuable than the official SEC filings, or those BusinessWire
press-releases, or even what your own Manager told you in person.

You have to have good instincts to survive and SOMETHING must have
been giving off a real bad odor over at Nominum LLC, if not layoffs.
I'll leave it at that, lest I be accused of being a rumor-mongerer :)

--
R