All language subtitles for Valley of The Boom s01e06 Fatal Error.eng

RENO [over TV]: The
Justice Department has charged Microsoft with

engaging in anti-competitive...

SEAN: The government's
now going after Microsoft with both barrels.

RENO [over TV]: Designed to
maintain its monopoly...

TARA: Cool.

RENO [over TV]: In personal
computer operating systems.

JIM: When you come across
a snake, you kill it.

You don't go back and
play with a dead snake.

We reached an
agreement to sell the

Netscape Communications
Corporation to AOL.

DAN: This guy who has been
calling himself Michael Fenne is really David Kim Stanley,

a fugitive of the law.

ROBERT: What about the
technology that I created?

MICHAEL: Yeah, well,
I'm trying to deal with this bankruptcy stuff so that you

and Chuck don't get arrested.

ROBERT: What?

MICHAEL: Hey, what did
y'all think of iBash?

GROUP: Whooo!

WISKOWSKI: You spent twelve
million dollars of my money on something that didn't work.

MICHAEL: Huh.

STEPHAN: Michael Egan
told us, "I wanna do business with you guys."

ED: We bought 51%
for 20 million.

STEPHAN: Which at
the time was the single biggest investment

in Internet history
by an individual.

Got the girl.

Got the money.

Now I'm ready to live a
disgusting frivolous life.

TODD: That piece
was very damaging.

STEPHAN: Dude, you know
they took it out of context!

TODD: You created the context!

We are running a
billion- dollar company.

And you played right
into the narrative that maybe we shouldn't be.

MICHAEL: Because it
burned inside me.

Because.

Be-be-be-because.

Be-be.

Because.

It burned.

Because it burned inside me.

REPORTER: IPO gate
is far from a sure case.

-Well, it's the Internet.
It's life in the fast line.

-Cash is cash.

-Anyone can create enough
wealth in a couple of years to become a billionaire.

-Fun becomes popular.

-Of the 175 Internet
companies that went public this year almost one-third

are trading below their
initial offering price.

MICHAEL: Because it
burned inside me.

REPORTER [over TV]:
America Online says combining the Web audience

of AOL and Netscape

will let consumers and
businesses do more on the Web.

The combination creates
a force to be reckoned with for anyone

targeting consumers
on the Internet.

MARC: Yes, I went
to work at AOL.

Is that so difficult
to understand?

Sorry, I'm not angry at you.

Fine, let me break it
down: I created something you all now use every day,

that speeds
communication, commerce, education, even love.

And that thing was
given to all of you.

You're welcome.

Did I make a tidy sum?

Yes, I did.

Did I leverage
my wealth and position toward the greater good?

I did the thing I did.

And I retreated
from a creative role to something else.

I'm a human being, with
an expiration date.

And I'm living the
rest of my life.

And I'm definitely
done talking about it.

TODD: Hey.

STEPHAN: Hey.
I'm really sorry.

TODD: No, man.
It's all good. You were right.

STEPHAN: No, let's go
in the conference room.

I feel really bad.

TODD: You drive this company.

You and your vision,
made this all happen.

STEPHAN:
Todd, that's not true.

TODD: You made a mistake.

One that got amplified
by the fishbowl we're living in as the guys

who started this company.

There wouldn't be a
company without you.

There wouldn't be a fishbowl.

And there wouldn't have been
the craziest IPO in history.

STEPHAN: We did do that.

TODD: We did.

[hand slap].

-Because it burned inside me.

MARC: Why are we
divided into thirds?

Hello?

DARRIN: Heeyyy, you up?

It's a lot, right?

I know, the entire thing.

This delicious bacchanal,
this orgy if you will of money and power,

I mean, that big ol'
juicy bubble,

it's starting to stretch tight.

Yeah, I know, you can feel
it right, yeah, I know, it is full to bursting,

the signs are everywhere,
the center will not hold.

That's Yeats, bitch.

So, I and all of us
financial sector experts,

as certified
investment practitioners,

do the prudent thing,
the wise thing, the right thing,

and hew tightly
to our fiduciary responsibility, right?

Well, as they say
in the olden days,

NOT.

[laughs].

MICHAEL: Everybody wanted
what we were building.

I told them, I said,
you can't have my social security number.

You can't know who I
am or where I come from.

If you want what
we're building at Pixelon,

you have to
leave my past alone,

whatever that may be.

That was the deal.

DAN: This guy that's
been calling himself Michael Fenne is really...

Somebody named
David Kim Stanley,

who is on the
State of Virginia's Most Wanted List

for uh, you know,
being a fugitive of the law.

DAVID:
First of all, I threw my driver's license away,

threw very piece of,

every trace of anything
that might identify me as David Stanley.

I threw all that away.

Um, I dyed my hair blonde,
I put on 200 pounds.

I did as much as I could
do short of mutilation to change my appearance.

HUFFINGTON: The founder
is fictional, which is kind of appropriate because

in many ways the
product is fictional too.

DAN: Almost immediately
after iBash, it was pretty clear that it was a failure.

The fact that they were unable
to stream the event live on the Internet confirmed:

That this was a technology that
wasn't ready for prime time.

GARY: I specifically made
it my objective to let the chairman of the board know:

This was not possible and they
kept going forward anyway.

BRIAN: The actual
broadcast of it live,

Pixelon didn't
even broadcast it live.

GARY: iBash failed.

[beep].

WISKOWSKI [over phone]:
Michael, this is the last time I'm gonna call you.

I'm getting on a flight
and we're gonna hash this out in person.

And you'd better have some
very compelling answers.

DAVID: Just try not
to attract attention.

They have people everywhere.

SHEILA: I don't know
how to drive and attract any less attention.

DAVID: If they've put me
"beyond salvage" that means they might disappear me.

We just need to keep moving.

Please, speed up!

SHEILA: Michael,
you're scaring me.

DAVID: Hey, pull over!

SHEILA: Ah! Ok.

DAVID: Ok look, you
should be scared.

We should all be scared,
the CIA doesn't mess around.

SHEILA: Why would the CIA?

DAVID: Hey, I told you
not to ask me about that.

It puts you at risk!

DAN: Michael's behavior
by all accounts was increasingly erratic.

DAVID: The hit squad
is probably on the way.

And this new so-called
"CEO," Paul Ward?

He's working for the bad guys.

SHEILA: What are
you, the "hit squad?"

Are we in danger?

I thought you liked
Paul and Denise.

We had them over to the house!

I thought the whole iBash
thing was such a big success.

DAVID: Honey, I need you
to do something for me,

you go home,
get any of my papers in my office and put them in a box

and then put them in the
cubby hole under the garage. Ok?

SHEILA: Yeah.
DAVID: Hey, shh. Get down!

[screams].

[sobbing].

Ok, sit tight, baby.

Do not answer
the phone or the door under any circumstances,

I'm talking about
your life here.

This may be the last
time we see each other,

know that I have
truly loved you,

even when you let me down.

SHEILA: Oh, Michael,
please don't say that.

Please. I don't.

Michael, Michael!

REPORTER [over TV]: AOL
is more powerful in consumer activity than any company,

including Microsoft.

So here's competition at
its finest, with people slicing up Netscape

for the real key assets.

ROSEANNE: Andreessen
becoming the AOL CTO was a bit of, you know, wow,

that's an interesting
one, isn't it?

SPENCE: There's a lot
of irony around the uh AOL purpose of Netscape.

That was just part and parcel.

ROSEANNE: Given everything
he had said about the company, yes, it was odd.

And I don't really know
even what he did in that role, if anything.

JIM: [in AOL voice]:
You've got a visitor.

MARC: Ha-ha.

JIM: I just wrapped up all
my transitional stuff here.

I just want to stop in and
let you know where we are with the antitrust case.

MARC: Why?

[Barksdale laughs].

Why would you
want to update me?

JIM: Are you, I, because it
has to do with the company,

Marc, with our positions.

MARC: My position?

Is that it's over.

JIM: It's far from over, Marc.

Microsoft was offered the
option of negotiating an out-of-court settlement.

They've opted not to take it.

So it's not over.

MARC: They're not taking
the option to settle.

JIM: No.
MARC: Of course they're not.

Gates will continue to
starve us out until there's nothing left; no engineers,

no will toward continuing
to fight for open source.

It's a victory by
demoralization and attrition.

"Death by a thousand
paper cuts."

It's a good
strategy, actually.

JIM: Yes or no.

Could it be a fool's errand?

Of course it could.

Could it just possibly be
an opening to achieving some sort of victory?

I think that that
is also possible.

MARC: Are you going
back and playing with dead snakes, Jim?

JIM: The main thing
is, I started this thing and I'm gonna finish it.

I made a promise to
a lot of our folks to see this thing through.

See, the thing is, Marc.

MARC: Thank you, Jim.

[typing].

JIM: Alright.

REPORTER [over TV: The
NASDAQ finally found some life on Friday but beneath

the broad numbers was another
day of dot-com meltdown.

TheGlobe.com,

one of the original
hit Internet IPOs is now 50 cents a share.

STEPHAN: Everyone was so
frustrated that the stock kept dropping despite

all of our performance,

that everybody thought there
was just something broken,

something's not working,
there's a disconnect.

And that frustration
translated into everybody saying,

"Well, we need more
stock because our stock keeps dropping in value.

We need more stock."

A pressure cooker
was building.

I could feel that
something was gonna give.

I don't know.
I'm out of ideas.

I just might go see
the new John Woo movie.

TODD: John Woo? Ugh.

STEPHAN: Seriously?
John Woo is "ugh?"

TODD: Bunch of operatic,
over-the-top slow-motion diving gun battles.

STEPHAN: Dude. He's a master.

A true artist.

John Woo is the man.

TODD: Meh.

Steph, we are so
screwed, buddy.

STEPHAN: We are?

TODD: I don't see
any way we're not.

STEPHAN: I mean, y'know
Todd, there are things you could do to be less screwed.

TODD: Why are you
acting so weird?

Oh, crap.

PHILLIP: Bro!

♪

STEPHAN: Okay.
Now we're screwed.

PHILLIP: Had a good run, boys.

But it ends here.

STEPHAN: You guys ready?
TODD: Ready. CODER: Let's do this.

[screaming]

STEPHAN: We sparked off
Internet IPO mania and we were also the beginning of the end.

I think if we
do something radical that gets some press,

like re-allocate 30% of.

TODD: Steph!

STEPHAN: What?

TODD: Mike Egan cashed in
50 million in globe.com stock.

STEPHAN: No.
TODD: Yes.

STEPHAN: He's the
chairman of our board.

TODD: It's already
being widely reported.

STEPHAN: He didn't
even tell us.

Mike Egan was my
[bleep] Gordon Gecko.

He was the guy who was
like going to make the bet on the [bleep] genius

Bud and Bud's own dad
didn't quite believe in him.

You know?

And it's like you finally get
to show off to your own dad.

You found somebody who
believes in you so mightily and that will put so much

money behind you.

We need to go out
to the Valley.

Create a new story,

do some laps,
shake some hands, raise some cash.

Let em know that
we're not dead yet.

Maybe Bob Halperin
will even double down.

TODD: Ok. Ok. But Steph.
STEPHAN: Yeah.

TODD: No plastic pants.

[both laugh].

MICHAEL: Look at all
these beautiful minds and bodies at work!

You are ALL my children!

I hope we are working at
maximum efficiency here.

What's the update on
the backend work, Brian?

BRIAN: Ummm, it
kinda is what it is.

Ready to ship, I guess.

MICHAEL: "Um, uh, err,
it is what it is."

Take out the "ums"
and "ahs," friend!

"Ready to ship, Michael!"

BRIAN: Ready to ship,
Mr. Fenne.

MICHAEL: Michael!

BRIAN: Ready to ship, Michael.

GARY: It's odd when you're
at a circumstance like that because it's kinda

happening to everybody.

And a lot of it was um,
just keeping it to yourself.

You would have opinions
about what was going on but nobody else seemed to

be saying anything to
keep it from happening.

BRIAN: You know, there
are all sorts of stories about what happened the

day that Michael was
removed from Pixelon,

when he was essentially,
you know, fired.

DAN: The day he was
a tumultuous one.

He's launching into these
long uh, tirades on the public-address system.

MICHAEL:
Good morning, rock stars!

iBash! What a victory.

I'm so thankful
to the lord and our divine technology.

We are on a role people,
so let's keep it up!

And when we hit that
IPO we will be in the land of milk and honey!

GARY: It was the dot-com era.

Everybody there thought
that they were on the precipice of great wealth.

It's odd what that does
to people, that sort of was the overriding thing.

Just deal with it.

DAN: Increasingly
the officers and the investors were saying,

"Michael's got to go."

MICHAEL [over intercom]:
This is The Master speaking.

THE MASTER!!

Frank, report to the
woodshed, your uncle is gonna give you a whoopin'!

Frank!

WISKOWSKI:
Lee Wiskowski here for...

Lee Wiskowski here
for Michael Fenne.

RECEPTIONIST: I'll check.

Is Mr. Fenne in?
There's a Lee Wiskowski.

WISKOWSKI: I know he's here,
I can see the door is open.

[document shredder].

MICHAEL: Hello, security,
this is Michael Fenne.

Get your asses up here.

Sha!

Shah, sha, sheh, she.

Phew, phew!

Hi. Hi, I'm Michael Fenne.

WISKOWSKI: Hey!
PAUL: Hey, Lee!

WISKOWSKI:
What the hell, Paul?

PAUL: I know, I know.

Things have gotten, weird.

WISKOWSKI: Paul,
you're the CEO.

We hired you to keep an
eye on iBash and Fenne.

If you can't do that, then
why the [bleep] are you here?

WISKOWSKI: I can't
believe this is happening.

And I just gave this
nutbucket 28 million.

PAUL: What's happening?

WISKOWSKI: What's happening
Paul is a fatal error.

This is enough.
This is enough.

Fenne has to go.

GATES: I think in late
'95 Andreessen was talking about how he was gonna

put us out of business.

MARC: Well, we think that
there's a series of activities that Microsoft's been engaged

in which may or may not be
legal and we've turned over that information to the

Department of Justice
and they'll figure out what to do from here.

THOMAS: The idea of having a
government committee basically have a design review over

engineering decisions
just made Bill and people like me gag in our mouths.

And that is probably why we
dug in our heels even though we had all these potential

opportunities just to get
off basically with almost no penalties whatsoever.

Looking back on that,
everybody thinks that was just disastrous thinking,

we got our egos in the way.

GATES: I'm not sure what
you're talking about, you'd have to show me the context.

THOMAS: But it was born
out of this idea about like the pride of engineering and

like Bill's ego really
is an engineer's kind of ego about,

don't tell me how
to do my goddamn job.

GATES: I don't see anything
about that in here.

MARC: Well, I think
that clearly when they go into a competitive situation

they'll use every
weapon at their disposal,

um, the only um, the
only issue now is that some of

those, some of those weapons
may or may not be legal and it's something for the

government to uh, to decide.

JIM: If I might, Mr. Chairman,

I would like a show
of hands, how many of you use Intel-based PCs?

And of that group,
who use PCs, how many of you use a PC without

Microsoft's operating system?

Gentlemen, that's a monopoly.

GATES: Some people agree with
that, some people wouldn't.

JOEL: Judge Jackson
had this case before him more than 2 years.

THOMAS: A bunch of the
"Legal Team" felt like this really deeply principled

uh thing about getting
the government out of our industry.

GATES: Did you actually
read what was in there?

JOEL: He found that
Microsoft had repeatedly abused its monopoly power.

THOMAS: And why Bill stayed
with the suit you know come hell or high water.

It was really born out of this
set of emotions around, hey, like we built this industry

out of nothing.

JOEL: And violated law by
crushing emerging threats to Windows dominance.

THOMAS: To have lawyers
come in out of the hills and tell us you know we made

the wrong engineering
decisions or the wrong design decisions was

just like please just
stay out of our industry.

Just stay out of it, you're
not going to add any value.

You're just going to make
a mess of it, um, and argue you know they did.

[door opens].

PAUL: Michael?
DAVID: Hey Paul.

PAUL: We need to talk.
WISKOWSKI: Right now.

Look Michael, you've
been handing out stock options like candy,

you just blew north of 12
million on a party to announce our tech where our tech failed,

and now quite frankly,
you're acting a little strange.

We need some answers
as to what the hell is going on here.

MICHAEL: Gentlemen, I think
it would be in all our best interest if you addressed me

with a modicum of respect.

I am after all the chairman
of this enterprise and I am guaranteed that position for

the next seven years
no matter what.

WISKOWSKI: No, Michael.

No. We're past all that.

I'm ready to gather some
complaints for a class action lawsuit unless you can provide

an immediate course
correction here.

MICHAEL: Did you
just threaten me?

After I took your
less-than-perfect money and allowed you to be my

date to the prom?

The one among all the
other suitors, to take this company to the stratosphere,

where it is definitely
heading, God willing and the lake don't rise,

as soon as we set that IPO.

I have sweated blood and
risked everything for you.

And you.

PAUL: Michael.
MICHAEL: Get out.

WISKOWSKI: I
still haven't heard.

MICHAEL: GET OUT!!

WISKOWSKI: We need him out.

PAUL: We don't have
enough board members.

WISKOWSKI: Find them.
Gather them.

Muster their asses.

I don't care how hard
it is, do it now.

We need him out.

PAUL: Okay, Steve Curtis
and Joel Shepard are local.

WISKOWSKI: Get 'em down here.

PAUL: Mike Kelly
is in Palo Alto.

WISKOWSKI: We need
to do this today.

WISKOWSKI: What the hell?

C'mon, let's get outta here.

PAUL: Yeah.

DARRIN: Remember
Buck's of Woodside?

The place where venture
capitalists and tech superstars shimmy on up the

great Silicon Valley
River to spawn?

Welcome back.

EGAN: We need to listen to
every angle on how to make TheGlobe viable again.

We're circling the drain.

ED: We worked really hard
on our agenda this year.

Why can't we just execute,
and not cut and run?

EGAN: If that's some veiled
reference to my sell-off, I've already explained that I

needed capital to
stay involved here.

ED: I just think bringing
in the guys to pitch a whole new strategy feels desperate.

MARC: Sorry, Jim.
JIM: Hey.

MARC: I don't have
a lot of time.

I have a 1:15.

JIM: How's AOL treating you?

MARC: I got a ton of
work to get back to.

JIM: Sure.
You're a busy man.

DARRIN: Here you go,
gentlemen.

JIM: Thank you.

DARRIN: That's right, this
man ordered a glass of milk.

What a, I, man, what's up?

You can see me.

You know, I don't
really exist, right?

MARC: I understand.

DARRIN: My man.

STEPHAN: Deja vu
all over again.

TODD: We can do this.

We can definitely do this.

Right?

DARRIN: Gentlemen,
welcome to Buck's.

EGAN: So, how do you
two propose we turn our company around?

WILL: We're really excited
about a way to completely reimagine TheGlobe.

BRIAN: Yeah, it begins
with an entirely new staff.

TODD: Well, well,
well, Will and Brian.

Can't say I'm surprised
because you're a couple of [bleep], and [bleep].

STEPHAN: Mike, Ed.

Thank you.

Go [bleep] yourselves.

ED: There were a couple of
employees that were bright guys in their own right that

were trying to do the right
thing for the company.

DARRIN: It's just
business, fellas.

ED: They just sort of aligned
against Todd and Steph.

STEPHAN: It felt like a
betrayal to Todd and I.

The fact that Mike Egan
took the meeting felt like a betrayal.

Implying that we weren't
doing a good enough job.

ED: They were very unhappy
um, with the fact that that meeting occurred.

They think that we could've
handled it differently.

Um, yeah, you know,
maybe they're right.

JIM: This is huge.

"Calling the world's
largest software maker untrustworthy,

U.S. District Judge Jackson
ordered Microsoft to be broken into two smaller companies

to prevent it from violating
state and federal antitrust laws in the future."

This is unprecedented.

"Microsoft was unwilling
to admit that it had violated federal antitrust law and has

shown no willingness to
modify its business conduct."

MARC: Sounds about right.

JIM: Whew.

MARC: But Jim, it
doesn't really matter.

The war is over and we lost.

JIM: Well, at least it'll
level the playing field for future companies.

You remember what it was
like to be a 22-year-old wunderkind with a dream?

Like those fellas
that just left?

Oh, come on, Marc,
this is a win.

We've been fighting these
sonsabitches forever.

And we got em.

And it's the right call.

The right thing finally
prevailed for one damn time in big business.

That doesn't make you happy?

Nothing? Anything?

MARC: Well, we'll
see if it sticks.

Really, Jim, I do
really need to go.

There's just so
much work to do.

JIM: Yeah, yeah, I hear that
from anybody except Jim Clark.

MARC: I'm pretty sure
the other Jim is riding around on his self-driving

yacht right now.

JIM: Maybe you need
a couple of those.

MARC: Yeah, I don't think so.

JIM: Maybe I need
a couple of those.

MARC: Jim, what you did,
fighting Microsoft, that was.

Thank you.

JIM: I appreciate that.

You take care of yourself.

MARC: Yeah. I am.

Don't get me wrong.
I think they're a great company.

But I think there's a
paradigm shift happening here, or a platform shift where um,

by and large things are now
happening you know, with or without Microsoft, they're,

they're no longer the
center of the universe.

BARKSDALE: It made
the industry more competitive as you rolled into

the 2000 decade.

It probably created products
like Google and uh Facebook.

They may not have existed
had that ruling not have been passed down and

phased in and implemented.

STEPHAN: It's just such a
stupid thing to fall for; some kind of father figure-mentor

comes along and I turn
into an 8-year-old kid.

TODD: Egan was the guy who
made it all happen for us;

gave us the keys
to the kingdom.

Just really hurts that
he'd go all the way to a full douchebag betrayal.

STEPHAN: You think of any
possible way to fix this?

TODD: I mean, we could
force Will and Brian out because of our position,

but if Egan wants them in
he could just call a vote.

STEPHAN: Hey.
TODD: What?

STEPHAN: When's the last
time we talked about, like,

the reason we
started this company?

TODD: Like our
"mission statement?"

Oh, God.

A really, really,
really long time.

"Change the world."

STEPHAN:
"Democratize information."

TODD: "Help like-minded
people find each other."

STEPHAN: All that.
TODD: A year, two, more?

STEPHAN: A million years ago.
TODD: Yeah.

STEPHAN: I'm out.

TODD: I'm out.
STEPHAN: We're out.

It's time, buddy.

[laughter].

Todd and I decided that
moment, we're out, we're done, we're resigning.

TODD: At the time that
we step down, we thought we should step down.

One, the stock performance
was not particularly good.

The job had become
much less fun.

We did not think we
had a strategy that would take us through this

time of difficulty.

And so I remember feeling
the decision to step away was entirely good.

I thought it was appropriate
and I thought it was good.

WISKOWSKI: I'm telling
you guys, Paul was there, Fenne was talking about

God and spankings.

CURTIS: More importantly,
he blew 12 million of the company's money on a

failed beta test.

KELLEY: I've been
looking at the books, which are a mess,

and it looks much more
like 20 million to me.

WISKOWSKI: Look, it's
very possible we might need some police backup here.

Ok, this guy's a
freakin' nutbucket.

SHEPARD: What we need is
one more board member so we can vote this guy out,

if that's the consensus.

DAN: They needed one
more member to show up and he's out on a horseback ride.

BART: Gentlemen.

WISKOWSKI: So Michael,
you understand our position.

We think we understand yours.

Your chairmanship is in a
very precarious position.

MICHAEL: I've reached
an interesting agreement with a certain gentleman

from the board, but
we'll leave that action for last in our meeting.

[gulping].

WISKOWSKI: Michael.

We're asking you to step
down as CTO and Chairman and remove yourself from the

premises immediately,
following a binding vote by the members present.

[table pounded].

MICHAEL: You are all going
to burn in hell for what you're trying to do to me.

WISKOWSKI: All in
favor of removal, aye.

-Aye, aye, aye.

WISKOWSKI: Paul.
PAUL: Aye.

MICHAEL: Now I know
who my Judas is.

DAN: The gathering of
the board resolves when they finally muster the votes that

they need to actually eject
Michael Fenne from Pixelon.

Finally, reality
catches up with him.

One possible explanation for
the severance package is that they still hoped to market

this technology to somebody
and the last thing they wanted was a disgruntled

founder who's going
and trying to torpedo potential deals, I mean,

that's certainly
one explanation.

Another is that they
knew of his past and knew of his false identity,

and wanted to keep that quiet.

It seems clear that you would
only pay a severance package to somebody who's behaved like

this, if you want to keep
something quiet, that you want to make something really

unpleasant go away.

DAVID: Crucified at the altar
of greed and mediocrity.

Another takedown
by the Hit Squad.

SPEAKER: How do we know
when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values?

REPORTER [over TV]:
Investors believe they could get rich quick by

buying Internet stock.

Companies are going
public at prices far lower than they would have a year ago.

Cyberspace investments
have proved to be risky.

IPOs in the technology field
have been hit really hard.

Many of those new
issues have failed to live up to expectations.

So how did it happen?

Why did so many investors
put so much money behind so many companies that

had never made a dime?

In hindsight, it all
appears so obvious.

The Internet mania was
a giant bubble, destined to burst.

[gum pops].

DARRIN: So, that happened.

CUBAN: The bubble was
burst; the Internet stock market was dead.

SPENCE: Why did
the bubble burst?

Not enough was real,
and um, eventually, you know,

investors started
pulling the plug.

ROSENSWEIG: The world had
turned on the Internet, right?

It was panic.

People had over-extended
themselves, they had never lived in a world

where things stop.

And suddenly they did.

CUBAN: Everybody had
borrowed on margin and bought stocks and the minute

those stock prices fell
enough and they got called in on their margins,

they had to sell,
sell at any price.

TARA: I was certainly
impacted by the bubble burst.

And it caused a lot of people
a lot of pain and suffering.

ROSEANNE: Not many people
walked away billionaires.

And I would, I would venture
to even say something I've never said before which is,

I don't think
the right people walked away necessarily, as billionaires.

I'm not sure it was equitable.

And I think that's what
bothers me to this day.

That many of those
people who I think put in their heart and soul,

probably didn't get
quite enough really, when all was said and done.

And um, that's,
that's too bad.

PATTY: The pink slip parties
came about after people started getting laid off,

the same way the
Internet took off and the tech jobs like exploded,

when the dot-com bust
started to happen, people were getting laid off every day

you would hear a friend saying
they got laid off.

It was just like
a wave of layoffs.

When the bubble
collapsed suddenly people were losing their jobs,

so I came up with the
idea of hosting these Pink Slip parties,

where employers could
network and connect with potential employees.

REPORTER [over TV:
Candlelight is not for romance, but for resumes.

This Pink Slip happy
hour links ex-dot-comers with recruiters.

PATTY: We'll be doing them
every month until they're not needed anymore.

It was stressful.

Everyone was losing
their jobs all around me and I didn't really know what

was going to happen.

Even my day job
laid off everybody.

They went out of business.

Luckily, I had just
started making money off the Pink Slip parties.

But I didn't feel like that
was going to be long-lived because everyone was fleeing

by the thousands.

We are going to drink.

Dance a little.
Network a lot.

And by the end of the
night, we will have new jobs or at the very least,

not remember losing
our old ones.

♪ Come take your base
and start the race ♪

♪ Come take your guitar ♪

PATTY: The Pink Slip
parties lasted about a year and a half and then I had

to close the site.

Honestly, it was
kind of a relief.

ROBERT: I'd like to report
a sighting of a fugitive.

DAN: Somehow Michael Fenne
gets wind gets wind that his secret identity

has been blown.

DAVID: I'm a child of God who
made a mistake and who has suffered miserably for that.

♪ Life, by Marshall Mathers♪

♪ What's life?
Life's like a big obsicle. ♪

♪ In front of your optical,
to slow you down.♪

♪ And everytime you think
you've gotten past it, it's gonna come back around♪

♪ and tackle you
to the damn ground.♪

♪ What are friends?♪

♪ Friends are people you
think are your friends but they're really your enemies♪

♪ with secret identities
and disguises to hide they true colors.♪

♪ So, just when you
think you're close enough to be brothers♪

♪ they wanna come back
and cut your throuat when you ain't looking.♪

♪ What is money?♪

♪ Money is what make
a man act funny.♪

♪ Money is the
root of all evil♪♪

DAN: I was mystified when
I learned that Michael Fenne was an elaborate cover for a

fugitive from the law,
David Kim Stanley.

I didn't understand how
that could've happened.

I didn't understand how
I could've missed it.

I didn't understand
how multiple investors could have missed it.

I didn't understand how the
world could've missed this.

♪ Tired of having to
borrow a dollar for gas to start my Monte Carlo.♪

♪ Tired of havin to
work cause the gas station clerk with his germs♪

♪ breathing down my neck,
driving me berserk.♪

♪ I'm tired of using
plastic silverware.♪

♪ Tired of working
at Builders Square.♪

♪ Tired of not
being a millionaire.♪

♪ But if I had a
million dollars,♪

♪ I'd by a damn
brewery and turn the planet into alcoholics♪

♪ If I had a million bucks,
it wouldn' be enough♪

♪ Cause I'd still be out
robbing armored trucks.♪♪

DAN: This was a company
that had spent, upwards of 8 to 12 million dollars

on a launch party,
and was extensively chronicled in the news.

How could this happen?

I still don't really know.

BRIAN: We found out
that, you know, he wasn't who he said he was.

We found out that he was
you wanted on, you know, charges from another state.

The word was he was, you know,
a fugitive from the law.

GARY: That just blew my mind.

Virginia's 10
Most Wanted List.

David Kim Stanley.

I, I was flabbergasted.

I couldn't believe it.

♪

DAVID: Hi. This is
David Kim Stanley.

I'm at Big Bear
discount gas, I'll be on a bench by a large bear.

[Police sirens].

[tires screeching].

[Radio chatter].

[handcuffs close].

OFFICER [over radio]:
Copy, be advised,

David Kim Stanley
is in custody, we're transporting now.

REPORTER: First comes the
boom, then the shake out.

Streaming video sight,
Pixelon.com is mired in lawsuits seeking the breakup

of the company.

DAN: When he talked
about his technology, he had a glimmer in his eye.

There was almost a halo
emanating from his head.

He either really did believe
it himself, or he was a very, very convincing actor.

CUBAN: It didn't matter if
it was 1895, 1995, or 2018.

Scams all follow the
same basic playbook.

Everybody's getting rich,
you're being left out.

DAVID: It was getting
bigger and crazier than I imagined it ever could.

DAN: And yet you continued.

DAVID: Because it
burned inside of me.

DAN: Would you have
kept running forever?

DAVID: I always planned to
come back and you can't argue with that because I did.

DAN: And what would you like
the world to know about you?

DAVID: I'm a child of God
who made a mistake and has suffered terribly for it.

HUFFINGTON: It was
more important than you can imagine right now,

when the concept of
the browser and the Web and the Internet

have become conflated.

But, when, um, the browser,
mm, was created, it changed the whole experience

of being online.

So it's interesting
that the first browser was called Navigator um,

it made it possible
to really explore.

ED: The fact that anyone in
the world can connect to you from anywhere in the world,

anytime of day, any day,
at high speed in an instant, is unbelievable.

CLARK: It was a great ride
and we changed the world, we kicked off the commercial

Internet, make no mistake
about that and I don't think it would've happened in the

same time frame without us.

ROSEANNE: It really
unleased the power of an inter-connected world.

BARKSDALE: What we did was
very, very important and I'm glad and I think almost

everybody associated
with it takes a great deal of pride in being part of

something that big
and worthwhile.

You know, we weren't
just picking our toes in Poughkeepsie.

RULON-MILLER: We were at
the time in Silicon Valley uh, the revolutionaries.

We were the ones that would
take down the big companies, Microsoft being one of them.

And we had a suction drawing
of brilliant people that said, I wanna be in the resistance,

I wanna fight that.

TARA: There was definitely a
Phoenix-like element to the dream of, of a free browser.

Firefox, which is sort of the
evolution of everything that we were doing back in the '90s

with Netscape, has succeeded
where, where we maybe as a corporation failed,

the ideal succeeded
and I love that.

I was just a build engineer.

But I was
part of something that was special and I still think,

I think a lot of us still
think it was truly special.

RULON-MILLER: It was an
incredible time, it's the most joyous time of my work life.

[sighs].

SPENCE: What we really were,
when people dug creating things,

and it was very artistic,
totally artistic, and so we, we were able to collectively

make our art.

And get it to the people
via the Internet and in giving them this product,

we were giving them
the Internet too.

Perfect. Perfect.

TODD: The story of
the beginning of the dot-com era is often told

with these tales of

absolute madness, sort of,
both extravagance, which we did not have,

as well as ethical lapses.

Think about all of the hand
ringing and, and lawsuits at the end of this period.

We did not have any of that.

It was, it was positive.

ED: We're positive
people, but I'd be lying if I didn't say uh,

it wasn't a disappointment.

STEPHAN: Netscape represented
the beginning of "The New Era" of technology and a browser.

TheGlobe simply represented
a concept of "The Internet" and virtual community

and living online.

So that's what created
these incredible surges.

Nobody was buying into
the specifics of TheGlobe.

ED: To both their tributes,
Todd and Steph and Michael, they both saw it.

They knew it.

STEPHAN: And yeah, TheGlobe,
you know, has been regarded as a precursor to Facebook.

ED: It was just a moment
in time where the entire sector was a bit early.

STEPHAN: When Facebook
started in 2004'ish, it was ten years after TheGlobe,

computers cost one
one-hundredth, bandwidth was one one-thousandth.

So I have no regrets there.

I don't think we could have
pulled off Facebook but we came as close to pulling off

Facebook as one could have in
the, the first dot-com era.

TARA: You know it's like,
what we unleashed was sort of the, the joking thing.

And we have unleashed
something completely uncontrollable,

but that's what I love
about the Internet now is that at the moment it is

uncontrollable and we
actually need to make sure it stays that way.

CUBAN: All of us
benefit from technology and are afraid of it.

All of us look at our
kids and see how quickly they adopt to new technology and

wonder how they do it.

And you know what?

They're gonna feel the
same way about their kids who are gonna feel the same

way about their kids.

ROSENSWEIG: This town is
always gonna have another shot, another leg,

we just don't know what it is,

we don't know when this
leg's gonna end and we don't know when the next one's

gonna start or
what's gonna start it.

But that's what Silicon
Valley has proven to be.

STEPHAN: I am so glad
I was there for the Internet revolution.

I'm happy to be
around for the, for the cryptocurrency and

crypto revolution in general.

HUFFINGTON: The
world keeps changing, and being able to tap into this

zeitgeist is going to
be key to the long term success of the product.

♪

DAVID: I will be in this and
many other places of splendor.

I will be singing and playing,

and taking a true
love with me to all the places you will only be able

to think about in your head.

I will live them.

And the saddest part for
you is that I am maybe one of the few people alive that can

actually accomplish this.

Recover completely from
the fatal wound that you gave and rise like a Phoenix

from the ashes of
fiery death to be reborn so much better than before.

And you know if I have
anything, I have that kind of gift from God.

But now.

Onto the good stuff
of my new life.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

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