The $7 Billion Delusion

from the the-importance-of-asking-questions dept

Wired Magazine has (yet another) good look at the failure of Excite@Home. It goes slightly beyond the usual "culture clash" explanation and looks in more detail at just how badly everyone seemed to misunderstand some aspect of what was going on. It seems that both companies had huge problems in that they didn't understand the business they were in. Adding to that a completely new and different business entity that they knew even less about was not helpful. It seemed there was an awful lot of wishful thinking going on all sides of the deal. Update: Meanwhile, there are reports that what's left of Excite@Home is trying to change the promised severance packages they told workers they would receive if they stayed to the bitter end.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Ed, 21 Jan 2002 @ 11:30am

    Severance

    Interesting tidbit about the severance packages. Seems similar to what's happening to Enron ex-employees now. I had always thought that employees' paychecks had priority in bankruptcy cases, and, by extension, so would promised termination packages, but I guess that's a pretty naive assumption.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.