IP: Internet Economy Grows on Plans, Not Products

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/10/biztech/articles/25digi.html

October 25, 1999

DIGITAL COMMERCE

Internet Economy Grows on Plans, Not Products

By DENISE CARUSO


he desire to cash out big is not a new motivating force in the technology 
industry. But what is striking about today's Internet economy is how much 
of that money lust is focused on selling business plans for their own sake, 
rather than planning viable businesses.
This trend may have already sown the seeds of its own demise.
"I call it 'the millennial pause,"' said Richard Miller, a veteran Silicon 
Valley strategist and investor who is distressed at the frenetic coupling 
of people with half-baked ideas and those with an overabundance of money to 
finance them. "It's the industry's saturnalia."