Boom and Bust; Venture Book Launch

ImagesAaron Cohen, who has been involved in the tech community
since the mid-90s has found himself in a new role as a professor at NYU.  He is teaching about the tech industry.  He believes, as I do, that the importance of
knowing how to computer program when you graduate college (at some level) is as
important as being able to read a book. 
It is about literacy of the times. 
He is also teaching his students about the history of the tech
community.  We have an industry that is
not quite 20 years old in NYC where you have the leaders and early adapters
able to tell the story to students when the story tellers aren’t even 60 years
old. 

Gina Neff, University of Washington, MCC visiting scholar Aaron, INC@NYU director me and Danah Boyd, Research Assistant Professor, Media, Culture, and Communication all sat on the panel which was really created to launch Gina's book, Venture Labor. The conversation
turned to the social aspect of the internet including the rise and fall of many
of the early innovative companies.  We
are seeing change again as consumers are moving to mobile from desktop.  Regardless, the net has always been a social
place and that social aspect has been some of the key components in the growth
of so many companies in the second stage of the web that we called web 2.0.

There were conversations about risk too.  Truth is, everything is a risk these
days.  The jobs of the past where you
could feel confident that you could hunker down for 30 years are
evaporating.  You might even find your
division close down at a large publically traded company such as IBM. 

I was there at the beginning working with Jason Calacanis as
his first hire (although I was freelance). 
We were the pinnacle of the industry in the mid-90’s because we were the
tech industries media.  We wrote about
each of the entrepreneurs and their companies. 
We put on the events that created community and networking.  I brought in the revenues.  I also had 15 years of experience over
everyone.  It was an amazing time and a
story that should be written.  Gina wrote
a great book and interviewed people who I have not seen since then but it is
written for a college audience not beach reading.

I told one story that is only 15 years old and I will tell
another one that keeps rattling around in my head in this blog post.  When AOL messenger was launched, I was at the
Flatiron Partners office doing work.  A
message popped up from Jason on my laptop as I was supposed to meet him in
about 20 minutes for a meeting.  We went
back and forth on the im and we both were almost gushing about how incredibly
cool it was that we were just chatting away on this new medium.  It just wasn’t that long ago and now everyone
walks down the street doing roughly the same thing with different tools on
their mobile phones.

Here is the one story I did not bring up that night.  There were certainly conversations about when
the bubble popped and how everything ceased for a few years.  Silicon Alley Reporter put on a huge parties
in the day.  Most of them revolved around
conferences we were putting on.  One
particular night, we had an event after the Internet conference that Meckler
had at the Javits Center.  It was at a
place right near there that that has two floors one with a huge roof deck.  The place was packed with so many people,
some I knew and others I had never seen. 
The place looked like the height of the music industry in the 70’s.  Just too cool  I just felt like too much has happened too
soon.  The amount that these companies
were valuing themselves at was ridiculous. 
We were creating superstars from geeks (although not such a bad thing
for a role model).  I remember looking at
the room and turning to Brian Cooper (who I have not seen in years) and saying,
this doesn’t feel right.  This just can’t
last.  You know what…it didn’t but it
came back and it came back better. 

Comments (Archived):

  1. Susan Rubinsky

    I’d love to hear you talk about being a woman in the tech industry in the early days. Personally, I remember being the only woman in the room at many tech companies, events, etc… (I still laugh my head off remembering this guy showing off this new router at a trade show — this was 1995 or so — and talking about how “sexy” it was as if he was in a locker room. I was the only woman in the room. And the thing was huge, like the size of an accordion. I remember feeling very snarky about the whole thing, thinking that I was in a room full of dinosaurs.)

    1. Gotham Gal

      ha. i think the times have changed a bit!

      1. aarondelcohen

        It’s pretty stunning how few women were in the industry in leadership positions during web 1.0

  2. skysurfer172

    Ahh, the good old days. I used SAR and Venture Reporter (and Digital Coast) to target new client’s for my little agency. We scored some big work and connections leveraging that subscription. Was sad to see it go, but happy watching JCal move on. It’s moments like this when I realize I am becoming an old Gen-X’er. 🙂

    1. Gotham Gal

      don’t forget @newyork.

  3. WA

    Did it go away? Following Fred for all these years I have the image of web 1.0 caterpillars, cocoons and the new highly colorful web 2.0 companies flapping their wings in VC portfolios!But hey,I am just one view! 🙂

    1. Gotham Gal

      lol

  4. aarondelcohen

    Meckler was the company! we were so close to remembering it. Thanks for kind words and we need to continue to talk about who will write a mainstream version of Gina’s book.

    1. Gotham Gal

      it finally came to me about two days ago too!

  5. tyronerubin

    Video of the nighthttp://vimeo.com/53525064

    1. Gotham Gal

      yep