Author: Matt

“There is a lot of hype in this business. The concept of kids shopping online has been overemphasized on the Web.”

Lame-duck Toysrus.com CEO John Barbour, whose musings on teen spending overlook the fact that the concept of anyone shopping online has been overemphasized on the Web, ZDNN, 12 September 2000

“There’s no doubt that it’s a complex relationship, but it isn’t direct hand-to-hand combat as everybody likes to say.”

Handspring CEO Donna Dubinsky, explaining that scraps between her new company and Palm Computing, the handheld maker she cofounded with Jef Hawkins, are more Zen than bare-knuckles, News.com, 24 August 2000

“As an investor, if you’re not tired, stressed and strained, then you’re brain dead. The last year was like a game of Frogger, and anytime you popped your head up someone banged you with a mallet.”

Investment banker turned venture capitalist Keith Benjamin, displaying just how many whacks to the head the market has delivered him since he last played a game of Frogger, Forbes.com, 23 August 2000

“I think the whole industry is a fiasco. It is a setback for the UK.”

Altavista UK managing director Andy Mitchell, on the company’s evanescent promises of flat-rate, unmetered Internet access, which lingered on three weeks after he decided to give the service the ax, The Guardian, 22 August 2000

“One atomic bomb and someone’s wiped out much of the brain trust of Silicon Valley.”

Leather-pants dotcommunist and AskJeeves exec Jennie Dal Busco, on the tempting critical mass gathered in a perfectly situated Nevada test site next week at the Burning Man festival, San Francisco Examiner, 20 August 2000