The Internet Bubble: Inside the Overvalued World of High-Tech Stocks--And What You Need to Know to Avoid the Coming Shakeout

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Summary: this book scared the c**p out of me
Review: As a "dot-com" kid I suddenly found it was the new millenium and I had a ton of money to blow. I read this book and the math was so dead-on I knew it was correct. But who could guess when the bubble would burst? Starting in March, 2000 it clearly started to burst but everytime there was a "dead cat bounce" I would go out and buy a million bucks worth of stocks only to watch that million turn to zip when the market fell further. This book is a great book, not from an historical perspective, but from an investment perspective. The fundamentals they talk about to analyze the bubble are useful now in determining which tech companies out there right now might have real value.

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Summary: Good, gutsy book
Review: Criticisms first: This book was a) somewhat clunky to read, more like a schema for a book than a book itself; b) somewhat thin; c) a little repetitive; and d) had a title only a glossator could love.

Now ... plaudits: The ever-contrarian freres Perkins are biting the hand that feeds them -- and it apparently tastes good. After years of being the house pet of venture capital firms up and down the West Coast, the last year has seen Red Herring toughen up somewhat. They don't just parrot vapid management and VC claims -- they analyze them, scoff at them, and generally do things that the trade press isn't supposed to do with full-page buyers of glossy ads.

This book continues the tradition, with muscular prose that amounts to chest shots at Kleiner Perkins (it overstates the jobs it has created; it helped fuel the current irresponsible bubble; and uber-investor John Doerr's radar regularly locks in on bogies).

This was good, tough journalism. While it may just be a coincidence, but I have found it heartily refreshing to see this book out, followed by Fortune's recent cover piece on dot-com financial machinations, and the Forbes expose on MicroStrategy.

Redemptive and highly recommended.

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Summary: BEWARE OF THE MARKET! YOU MAY GET BURNT
Review: Excellent book. Well written and relevant not only in the US but globally. The internet boom in every country is giving crazy valuations to companies which dont look like will make a dime in the next 10 years. A must for anyone who even remotely invests in the stock market. Under current circumstances almost every wants to become the next billionaire. Well you will find our from the book that the path from riches to rags is pretty short. One trading day. Each one of you must have a copy of this book and read it every time there is a mania in any market.

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Summary: Great Book!
Review: I read this book over 2 years ago and am glad I did! This saved me plenty of $$$$.

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Summary: Internet Bubble
Review: In this book the Perkins tell us that the party is about over. They state flatly that, "If you own any of these companies (133 publicly traded Internet firms) it's time to sell". The book is a comprehensive analysis of how we got to the present state of affairs by looking at the history and the financial structure of the Internet marketplace. I read the book in two sittings over the weekend because after the first few pages I didn't want to miss the markets opening bell on Monday. The book is simply, scary. When business models, like Amazon's fail to demonstrate a way to ever be profitable it is time to worry.

They don't deny the glory of Silicon Valley, but they lay out a compelling case that the pumped up valuations are not sustainable and are about to go south big time. The book reads like a movie but feels like a slap up side the head. As the companies tank we at Buck's will be accepting stock certificates to repaper the rest rooms, so drop them by if you would.

Jamis MacNiven Buck's of Woodside

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Summary: Timely warning, but how many will heed it?
Review: The authors make a convincing case why internet stocks are enormously overvalued right now. They also provide insight into the machinations and manipulations that happen in the background, far away from the centerstage where the stocks are paraded in the limelight and small investors are convinced to part with their money.

While the authors are confident that the internet is here to stay (and grow), they are concerned about the insane valuations of internet stocks. On reading this book, any rational investor will go back convinced that the internet stocks are the tulip bulbs of the current era. One wishes small investors will heed this warning. But knowing the previous outbreaks of stock-market mania, not many will escape the ruinous effects of this one either.

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Summary: excellent book, easy read
Review: this book was a fabulous read. I especially enjoyed the Dilbert cartoons at the front of each chapter. Does anyone know where to get these photos. My book is at home and I want to download them from my computer. I checked Dilbert site and nothing. A must read for a reality check into these markets.

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Summary: It should be read outside the US also
Review: This is an excellent book full with valuable information, worth-reading because it clearly explains what many don't want or don't dare to explain.

It should be read by investors and insiders from other countries, particularly Europe, where there are so many companies and individuals who are salivating over getting suddenly ultra-rich, no matter what happens to the 'regular guy'. After roaring IPOs like FreeServe, Terra Networks. Jazztel, etc., there's a long queue waiting for this kind of 'gold rush'. In my opinion, we Europeans should take a deep vision of what's happening in the USA, so we can try to avoid the damaging consequences of a market shakeout.

I'm a firm believer of technology and the Internet, as the Perkinses are, but I am against people using technology as an excuse for taking advantage of outsiders. It's like selling snake oil, and people has to be warned. I think the Perkins brothers are doing that very well, and especially being experts in the subject.

Besides, the book is very interesting to read, it's very catchy; it seems that you can't leave it after you start it - it grabs you like a Stephen King novel!

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Summary: Also relevant to readers from India
Review: When John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins & Caufield Byers described their work as `the best researched book on Silicon Valley ever', it caught Anthony B. Perkins and Michael C Perkins completely by surprise. After all, they had, in their book, sounded distinctly critical of the venture capital powerhouse and had quoted, with some ambivalence, Stewart Alsop, General Partner of New Enterprise Associates, as saying: ``John Doerr is to his business what Bill Gates is to software.'' Be that as it may, it was clear that John Doerr liked the book. Which fact, in itself, was sufficient to establish that it needed to be taken very seriously indeed.

Anthony Perkins is the Founder and Chairman of Red Herring Communications and Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Red Herring, one of the best known technology business magazines, and redherring.com. His brother, Michael Perkins, is the founding editor of Red Herring and the author of *The Red Herring Guide to the Digital Universe*.

This is what Anthony Perkins has to say about the magazine: ``In the old days, there was only a handful of people who looked at the world from a venture capital perspective as we do. In the Internet era, everyone has to look at it that way. Whether you're an investor in the public market or a PR agency trying to get new business, you must get early bets on new companies and hope that they become significant enterprises. That's where we come in."

It is precisely the ability of the authors to look at the world (at least, that section of it related to the Internet) in the same way that a venture capitalist would that accounts for the authenticity of their book. They characterise the Internet bubble as a world led by a brash new generation of entrepreneurs who command thousands on Internet startups, many loaded with venture capital or flush with cash from recent initial public offerings (IPOs). The upside, they point out, is that the Internet boom is real.The companies successfully driving the electronic highway have transformed the technology industry while also creating quality jobs and real wealth along the way. The downside is that the mania surrounding Internet companies has translated into too much venture capital, too many Internet start-ups and too many Internet IPOs, driving both private and public company market valuations to insane levels.

An Indian reader should be able to relate to this scenario. All that they have to do is to look at the absolutely dud companies the shares of which were sagging way below par value but perking up after the addition of the `infotech' or .com term to their names. In time, Indians will also be able to relate to the prediction made by the authors that individuals who hold stock in public Internet companies could experience a 50 percent melt-down in the value of their holdings if they don't sell before the Internet bubble bursts.

Whether they completely agree with the authors' point of view or not, readers of this book are bound to be intrigued by the bubble calculation methodology set out in it, and amused by some extremely mordant Doonesbury cartoons by the one and only Garry Trudeau that kick off the chapters. All in all a great book. Highly recommended.

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Summary: Great Book!
Review: With the current shakeout of high tech stocks on both the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchanges, you would think a lot of people were losing money. But according to the authors of this book, the only people losing money are the ones who bought the stocks at overvalued prices. The ones who made money were the insiders and the people who sold before the downturn. These people or the general public that made money were able to find even greater "fools" willing to buy their stocks at those outrageous prices and who were subsequently left with millions in stock value losses. Also, the insiders have cashed out long before the current shakeout going on in the market place. So, the "moral" of the story is to be an insider so that you know what's going on inside the companies you own stock. "The Internet Bubble" focuses on these insiders, namely the venture capitalist (VCs). The authors also talk about the world of investment bankers. The book lists all the major players in the investment banker and venture capitalist world and gives a brief history about each. The authors also have a final note or epilogue to the reader in that you should sell your stocks as soon as possible. Their rational is that all the Internet companies would have to have enormous growth to justify their stock pricing. Of course anyone can say that is time to sell because the Internet bubble will burst, but no one knows when exactly it will burst. If we did, none of us would need to work! Just like today with stocks at a low, I can say that its time to buy because they will go back up eventually. Am I correct? Probably, but the question is when will they go back up? Again, if I knew, I wouldn't need to work! All in all, I did find this book helpful in understanding the world of "insider trading". I would not recommend it to people who already know about investment banking and ventures capitalists. The book is fairly easy to read even though I got confused with all the statistics that were used throughout the book. There is also a comic strip of Doonesbury before each chapter to offer comic relief. These strips mock the world of Internet investing. Even though they mock Internet investing, I find them to be generally true. Examples of this include taking a company public even though they will never show profits. Another comic has an Internet company going public without a robust product and "suckering" the public into buying the stock because they are an Internet company.