Surviving the Internet Gold Rush

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It’s time for a reality check on the new economy. Are we still making millions? Are we still having fun?

The age of the overnight, internet-industry sensation is over! A lot of dot-com employees from California’s Silicon Valley to New York’s Silicon Alley are mad as hell. They left their stable, old-economy jobs to seek their fortune, but many of them didn’t rake in the dough. They didn’t get their stock options, they didn’t get a company car, they worked 15 hour days, they slept under their desks, they lived on caffeine.

At the dawn of the information age, the former Boston Globe editor Tom Ashbrook got a whiff of new media. With three kids, a wife, two car payments, and a mortgage, he leapt into the internet goldrush. It was a manic, bumpy, breathless ride and he almost lost everything. And it was worth it, he says.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)

Guests:

Tom Ashbrook, author of The Leap: A Memoir of Love and Madness in the Internet Gold Rush.