6 ms·

God this brings back memories of fuckedcompany.com Right after September 11th, that site got very popular among engineers like me -- seeing (on a daily basis)

God this brings back memories of fuckedcompany.com Right after September 11th, that site got very popular among engineers like me -- seeing (on a daily basis) which company bloodbath was next. It was kind of fun, until it was our company.

McMini 7y ago
What did the site show?
- nemo44x 7y ago
  Companies that were fucked, as their name documents. Got their start in the heyday of the .com crash as domino after domino fell and many companies were exposed for the unviable company’s they were. The site took great joy in documenting (mocking) companies that were once tall and proud and quickly collapsed.
  - DonHopkins 7y ago
    I always wondered if fuckedcompany.com had back-door access to the Internet Confessional database.
    - nemo44x 7y ago
      I think they just allowed anonymous posts. Different era where they were actually sort of reliable. I think they got sued a lot which forced them to shut down. In the end Fucked Company was fucked, too.
- judy2k 7y ago
  It allowed employees to leak when their company was laying off employees. There was a sister site called luckedcompany.com which allowed employees to leak when their company got investment (IIRC)
- wpietri 7y ago
  In form, it was a pretty simple discussion site. But it had a lot of insider info and an enormous amount of snark, and it really captured the spirit of the popping of Bubble 1.0 (and the post 9/11 downturn). I remember one where a CEO made a big deal about the tech staff working through the holidays to finish vital new products. And then the CEO went on vacation to Hawai'i, leaving the nerds to grind it out. The memo and vacaction leaked to Fucked Company, where comments were spirited, and I think it eventually caused a big to-do.
  - jansan 7y ago
    I remember a suggestion to place all startups in a death pool which they were only allowed to leave if they managed not to buy any Aeron chairs (those were all the rage at that time) after one year in business. I loved that idea.
    - jboy55 7y ago
      My company was featured in a story on Herman Miller, where we spent more on Chairs then we had in revenue for the entire 24 months of our existence.
      - StillBored 7y ago
        The other side of this, is the company I worked for about that time, purchased the entire set of office furniture from a defunct company to setup our office when we moved. Turns out we didn't need it all, and sold a lot of it. At the end of the year, the majority of our profit was the furniture hussle.
        Animats 7y ago
        At the end of the first dot-com boom, there was a place in San Jose called Consolidated Office Supply which bought the furniture of failed dot-coms. They had a warehouse which covered an entire city block, full of used furniture. Looked like the warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark. I bought furniture there for something I was starting up. Very cheap, and they delivered.
- heyflyguy 7y ago
  It also had the memos or emails sent, which were morbidly interesting to read.
  - danesparza 7y ago
    I really remember these the most.
Mountain_Skies 7y ago
PBS did a story on them but couldn't say Fucked Company on their broadcasts so they used the name "The Dot Com Deadpool" instead.
- DonHopkins 7y ago
  Fucked Company published an excellent documentary on the Digital Entertainment Network. (It's from "Fucked Company", so obviously it's NOT SAFE FOR WORK, but who's at work any more these days?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmaRTZpJgPA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmaRTZpJgPA >Dot Com Boom & Bust - Digital Entertainment Network >A parody of the founders of Digital Entertainment Network. DEN was "a quintessential example of the excesses and lack of control of the dot-com craze." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Entertainment_Network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Entertainment_Network >I rescued this from Web Archive, and it was originally posted on the Fuckedcompany.com website, which went defunct in 2007. Yes, THAT guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6iDZspbRMg&t=19m42s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6iDZspbRMg&t=19m42s >Cryptocurrencies: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucked_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucked_Company Oh no :(, the Internet Archive fucked them: https://web.archive.org/web/2/http://www.fuckedcompany.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/2/http://www.fuckedcompany.com/ >Sorry. >This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine. Alternative archive of the front page, at least: https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20060603194832/http://www.fuckedcompany.com/ https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20060603194832/http://www... Then they went from sorta fucked: https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20091016001955/http://www.fuckedcompany.com/ https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20091016001955/http://www... To fucked: https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20130104195206/http://www.fuckedcompany.com/ https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20130104195206/http://www...
DonHopkins 7y ago
And suck.com! They ran a sad requiem for a company I worked for to the end in '96: Kaleida Labs, a joint venture of Apple and IBM. Q: What do you get when you cross Apple and IBM? A: IBM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaleida_Labs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaleida_Labs https://web.archive.org/web/19970617084520/http://www.suck.com/daily/95/11/22/ https://web.archive.org/web/19970617084520/http://www.suck.c... For Goldhaber and Braun, we recall the line of Guildenstern in coming out the losers in a game of princes and kings from Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead: "There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said - no."
gadders 7y ago
I wonder what Pud is up to now. Didn't he use to post on here?
- snowwrestler 7y ago
  He started and is running DistroKid, which is probably the most popular way for independent music artists to get their music into digital stores and streaming services.
  - gadders 7y ago
    Ah, yes. I remember now.
- jansan 7y ago
  He is on Twitter: https://twitter.com/pud https://twitter.com/pud
jansan 7y ago
There was a German equivalent called Dotcomtod (dotcomdeath), which had incredible amounts of inside knowledge. I had just started a small software company and for some reason loved reading their stories. One of the key people of Dotcomtod (Don Alphonso) is now a famous blogger with conservative/libertarian views.
downerending 7y ago
Kind of, though the main draw for me was all the stories of hubris and ineptitude, and it was largely just the money of the rich being burned up in the process.
celim307 7y ago
Blind is the resource I use now to scratch the same itch
- tandr 7y ago
  Unless you are in US, it is a very poor one, sorry.
bdcravens 7y ago
It's a different thing (for acquihires) but https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ has much the same vibe.
thebigspacefuck 7y ago
I sometimes check https://www.thelayoff.com/ https://www.thelayoff.com/ to see which companies are having layoffs, though much of it is rumors of things which never happen.
- soared 7y ago
  When Oracle data cloud had 20% layoffs in September (~250 people) that site was the best and worst place. You could see layoff reports in realtime and get info on how to do benefit claims/etc. Very scary to sit in an office where nobody is working because we are waiting to see who gets let go next.

McMini 7y ago

What did the site show?

nemo44x 7y ago
Companies that were fucked, as their name documents. Got their start in the heyday of the .com crash as domino after domino fell and many companies were exposed for the unviable company’s they were. The site took great joy in documenting (mocking) companies that were once tall and proud and quickly collapsed.
- DonHopkins 7y ago
  I always wondered if fuckedcompany.com had back-door access to the Internet Confessional database.
  - nemo44x 7y ago
    I think they just allowed anonymous posts. Different era where they were actually sort of reliable. I think they got sued a lot which forced them to shut down. In the end Fucked Company was fucked, too.
judy2k 7y ago
It allowed employees to leak when their company was laying off employees. There was a sister site called luckedcompany.com which allowed employees to leak when their company got investment (IIRC)
wpietri 7y ago
In form, it was a pretty simple discussion site. But it had a lot of insider info and an enormous amount of snark, and it really captured the spirit of the popping of Bubble 1.0 (and the post 9/11 downturn). I remember one where a CEO made a big deal about the tech staff working through the holidays to finish vital new products. And then the CEO went on vacation to Hawai'i, leaving the nerds to grind it out. The memo and vacaction leaked to Fucked Company, where comments were spirited, and I think it eventually caused a big to-do.
- jansan 7y ago
  I remember a suggestion to place all startups in a death pool which they were only allowed to leave if they managed not to buy any Aeron chairs (those were all the rage at that time) after one year in business. I loved that idea.
  - jboy55 7y ago
    My company was featured in a story on Herman Miller, where we spent more on Chairs then we had in revenue for the entire 24 months of our existence.
    - StillBored 7y ago
      The other side of this, is the company I worked for about that time, purchased the entire set of office furniture from a defunct company to setup our office when we moved. Turns out we didn't need it all, and sold a lot of it. At the end of the year, the majority of our profit was the furniture hussle.
      - Animats 7y ago
        At the end of the first dot-com boom, there was a place in San Jose called Consolidated Office Supply which bought the furniture of failed dot-coms. They had a warehouse which covered an entire city block, full of used furniture. Looked like the warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark. I bought furniture there for something I was starting up. Very cheap, and they delivered.
heyflyguy 7y ago
It also had the memos or emails sent, which were morbidly interesting to read.
- danesparza 7y ago
  I really remember these the most.

Mountain_Skies 7y ago

PBS did a story on them but couldn't say Fucked Company on their broadcasts so they used the name "The Dot Com Deadpool" instead.

DonHopkins 7y ago
Fucked Company published an excellent documentary on the Digital Entertainment Network. (It's from "Fucked Company", so obviously it's NOT SAFE FOR WORK, but who's at work any more these days?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmaRTZpJgPA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmaRTZpJgPA >Dot Com Boom & Bust - Digital Entertainment Network >A parody of the founders of Digital Entertainment Network. DEN was "a quintessential example of the excesses and lack of control of the dot-com craze." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Entertainment_Network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Entertainment_Network >I rescued this from Web Archive, and it was originally posted on the Fuckedcompany.com website, which went defunct in 2007. Yes, THAT guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6iDZspbRMg&t=19m42s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6iDZspbRMg&t=19m42s >Cryptocurrencies: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucked_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucked_Company Oh no :(, the Internet Archive fucked them: https://web.archive.org/web/2/http://www.fuckedcompany.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/2/http://www.fuckedcompany.com/ >Sorry. >This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine. Alternative archive of the front page, at least: https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20060603194832/http://www.fuckedcompany.com/ https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20060603194832/http://www... Then they went from sorta fucked: https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20091016001955/http://www.fuckedcompany.com/ https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20091016001955/http://www... To fucked: https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20130104195206/http://www.fuckedcompany.com/ https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20130104195206/http://www...

DonHopkins 7y ago

And suck.com! They ran a sad requiem for a company I worked for to the end in '96: Kaleida Labs, a joint venture of Apple and IBM. Q: What do you get when you cross Apple and IBM? A: IBM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaleida_Labs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaleida_Labs https://web.archive.org/web/19970617084520/http://www.suck.com/daily/95/11/22/ https://web.archive.org/web/19970617084520/http://www.suck.c... For Goldhaber and Braun, we recall the line of Guildenstern in coming out the losers in a game of princes and kings from Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead: "There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said - no."

gadders 7y ago

I wonder what Pud is up to now. Didn't he use to post on here?

snowwrestler 7y ago
He started and is running DistroKid, which is probably the most popular way for independent music artists to get their music into digital stores and streaming services.
- gadders 7y ago
  Ah, yes. I remember now.
jansan 7y ago
He is on Twitter: https://twitter.com/pud https://twitter.com/pud

jansan 7y ago

There was a German equivalent called Dotcomtod (dotcomdeath), which had incredible amounts of inside knowledge. I had just started a small software company and for some reason loved reading their stories. One of the key people of Dotcomtod (Don Alphonso) is now a famous blogger with conservative/libertarian views.

downerending 7y ago

Kind of, though the main draw for me was all the stories of hubris and ineptitude, and it was largely just the money of the rich being burned up in the process.

celim307 7y ago

Blind is the resource I use now to scratch the same itch

tandr 7y ago
Unless you are in US, it is a very poor one, sorry.

bdcravens 7y ago

It's a different thing (for acquihires) but https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ has much the same vibe.

thebigspacefuck 7y ago

I sometimes check https://www.thelayoff.com/ https://www.thelayoff.com/ to see which companies are having layoffs, though much of it is rumors of things which never happen.

soared 7y ago
When Oracle data cloud had 20% layoffs in September (~250 people) that site was the best and worst place. You could see layoff reports in realtime and get info on how to do benefit claims/etc. Very scary to sit in an office where nobody is working because we are waiting to see who gets let go next.