Dot Con was good but I felt it was lacking a lot of color, what it was like to experience the the bubble from the inside. Burn Rate has it in spades. This is the story of a single CEO in the midst of the dot com boom running around and trying to secure enough capital to keep his money-burning company afloat. The dialogue is worthy of a Max Barry or Ian M Banks novel. Especially his conversations with his wife/counsel.
Wolff is a bastard. He sells a grandmom-and-pop magazine company his lemon of a database, runs out of money, sells air like a conman and ultimately tries to screw his investors. He shows little or no concern for anyone but himself–not his wife, not his employees, and last of all his customers. His concern is singular: he wants a big payout.
What’s truly insane is that this book was out in 1998. This wasn’t some expose of the bubble nor did the account of numerous dotcoms being dead companies walking or outright ponzis serve to deflate it. It kept rolling for years.
