EITHER THAT, OR THEY FOUND OUT “WISH UPON A STAR” WASN’T AN EFFECTIVE BUSINESS STRATEGY

“The advertising community has abandoned the Internet.”

Disney chairman Michael Eisner, who appears to be taking poor ad sales at his company’s Go.com portal a bit personally, FT.com, 28 January 2001

HOW MUCH STOCK WOULD A DAYTRADER CHUCK IF A DAYTRADER COULD CHUCK STOCK?

“Advertising does aggregate around large scale advertising aggregators.”

Yahoo CEO Tim Koogle, providing a tongue-twistingly weak justification for the price of his company’s shares at the World Economic Forum in Davos, BBC, 26 January 2001

GO SMALL OR STAY HOME

“This company has always strived to do more. Now, we’re going to strive to do less.”

Excite@Home CEO George Bell, describing the company’s job-slashing as corporate Zen minimalism, TheStreet.com, 25 January 2001

IF ALL ELSE FAILS, WE’LL RENT A MARKET

“We don’t ‘own’ any market. We’re going to keep fighting for customers.”

Apple CEO Steve Jobs, addressing the troops at the rebate-happy computer maker’s latest all-hands meeting, ZDNN, 25 January 2001

SOFTWARE FOR THE FRAGILE BUSINESS

“This was an operational error and not the result of any issue with Microsoft or third-party products, nor with the security of our networks.”

Microsoft spokesbot Adam Sohn, spinning desperately after a day when the software giant’s Web sites were largely unreachable due to a monstrously dumb network design, News.com, 24 January 2001