Burn, Silicon Valley, Burn

New York -- Michael Wolff, writer and founder of Wolff New Media and NetGuide, couldn't make it in the Net content biz, so he did the next best thing: He told his story in excruciating detail in a juicy tell-all book called "Burn Rate," due in June. It chronicles the world of Internet startups, venture capital, money chasing (and money losing), with a devil-may-care abandon as to whom it might piss off. And it will piss off everyone from AOL to Microsoft to CNET to CMP and beyond.

Thanks to a 3MR mole at the publisher, we got a sneak peek at the final book proofs, and here are some great tidbits to whet your appetite:

* [Wolff knew Wired's Louis Rossetto way back when. He meets Rossetto and Jane Metcalfe in Amsterdam, pre-Wired.]

"This is my girlfriend Jane," [Louis] said. One would certainly not have written him with a girlfriend. "She's going to be selling advertising for the magazine. I thought you could tell her some of the things she should be doing." I was embarrassed for them, and grateful to be in Europe where no one I knew might see me.

Jane came to eager attention, poised with pen and pad. "I want to get liquor and car ads!" She was as young and fey and comely as he was old and burdened and humorless.

* [Later, when the pair were running Wired in SF]

Louis and Jane--subtly transformed from Parisian gamine to Bay Area power babe (flowing hair became tight cropped, long skirts became short, swaddled arms became bare and muscular)--returned to New York to deal with the issue of a growing staff, exploding ambitions and an ever-widening shortfall of cash.

The way that Wired began to grow was awe-inspiring. The awe came from the realization that such transformations are, apparently, possible. Louis could go from lost soul to fearless mogul, Jane from diztiness to great stature in the publishing and advertising industries -- all in a year and a half!

* [A Wolff board room discussion with Bob Machinist, a rich financial type]

"There's a casting problem," Machinist said, casting about for a new strategy and stroke of brilliance shortly after our prospective deal with Magellan collapsed. "Everybody's thinking--what's that guy's name...Netscape...super gentile?"

"Barksdale," Jon Rubin replied, naming the professional manager brought in to run Netscape.

"Who's our Barksdale?" Machinist asked. "I want a Jewish Barksdale."

"What I'm looking for...We have Michael," he said, letting me slip quietly into the third person. "And he's our visionary," he said, using an affectionate term of deprecation in the technology business not unlike "writer" in Hollywood. "Now we need someone who can really sell the shit out of this. I don't want a dry eye in the house."

* [He meets Larry Kirshbaum, who ran Time Warner's book division]

"You're so brilliant. You're so fabulous," announced Kirshbaum the next day, rushing to embrace every Internet accessory in my office (my modem, my Wired magazine, my T-shirt collection, my conference badges). "You understand. You get it! I love you! We have to work together! We're going to do incredible things. What can we do? How do you want to do it? Whatever you want. Whatever! We'll merge! Time Wolff!" he crowed, his face in mine, one hand grasping one of mine, his other hand rubbing my back. "In five years there won't be any books or magazines or newspapers. it'll be all Net!"

[Larry was taken off the project later.]

* [He met with CMP, computer mag publishers in Long Island, in '94.]

His number two was a lumbering bear in his mid-fifties with the euphonious name of Drake Lundell and an Ed McMahon avuncularity. He seemed more toastmaster than, as Cron described him, the "creative genius" of the company. They were a great audience. They had never seen the Internet but were convinced of its charms...They did not personally use nor did they have any special abilities for technology. They had no real experience, in other words, to get in the way of their enthusiasm. They were at that point in time, for instance, and for several years to come, unable to receive email successfully. But no matter. We were all very self-congratulatory that we all had the foresight to understand that this new medium would be the next television.

* [Wolff met with CNET in SF about a deal with the NetGuide books.]

"There's a lot of interest here," Shelby Bonnie [CNET CFO] said, but passively.

"I don't understand these books," [CNET CEO] Halsey Minor said, holding up one of our books as if it were a recent and unpromising invention. Selling out my career and education, not to mention much of civilized history, I said, "you really shouldn't look at them as books but as just another outlet of a content business. We create content. Whether books are an efficient expression of that content is an opportunity that we have to continually evaluate. So far, we've found that books are a successful adjunct to an electronic business."

"I'm just not sure anybody is going to value books," Halsey said, but he was flipping the pages as though interested. "Books," he said, as though in a private meditation.

"They work," I said.

"It's not going to help our share price. It doesn't make much sense for us to buy your content for more than we'd pay to create it ourselves." That logic seemed crystal clear to him. "Wall Street doesn't value a book audience very highly," [Halsey said.]

"And then--I'm not sure, really, that it would be economical for you to try to recreate our content."

"What do you pay for one of these little reviews? What do you use, freelancers?"

[This foreshadows Snap!, wherein Halsey spent a buttload of money for his own reviews.]

If you like what you've read here, be sure to get the book in June. It's a killer.

**********

"3-Minute Roast" is a weekly, advertisement-free, opinionated rip on anything that strikes our fancy in the online world.

Max Schlickting - Editor-in-Chief
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