Month: April 2000

“We’re not going to spend another three or four years slogging it out with Yahoo and AOL.”

Excite@Home CEO George Bell, on his company’s slack growth in its conventional Web businesses, News.com, 21 April 2000

“The PocketPC guys are excited about taking a Web page and displaying it on a little bitty screen.”

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, on the driving passions of his handheld devices team, TechWeb, 19 April 2000

“The dot-com generation will get squeezed by more skilled baby-boom managers and aggressive Generation Y newcomers. Former dot-com managers will end up working for their elders and their juniors.”

Forrester Research CEO George Colony, on the pesky, twentysomething, Internet millionaire twerps he’s been forced to interview, Wired News, 19 April 2000

“The clients made mistakes by not defining the concepts of their businesses well enough. But the agencies made mistakes, too, not questioning if the business model was right and whether people really wanted to buy dog food over the Internet.”

Goodby Silverstein creative director Rich Silverstein, on the coming shakeout in dot-com advertising budgets (and why he’s not bitter about losing the Pets.com account to TBWA/Chiat/Day), The New York Times, 18 April 2000

“We take our craft … very seriously, as do most artists. It is therefore sickening to know that our art is being traded like a commodity rather than the art that it is.”

Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, explaining his band’s decision to sue fans who trade song files over a CRT screen, E! Online, 14 April 2000

“We really felt — and ultimately were proven right — that this would be the first major creative marriage between a song, a rock band and a film.”

Ulrich, explaining the band’s decision to commodify its art for the silver screen in the upcoming Mission: Impossible 2, Metallica.com, 14 April 2000