Rating: 
Summary: An Instant Classic
Review: New Yorker financial writer, John Cassidy, says it all in this brilliantly rendered, highly entertaining account of the biggest economic scandal of the last twenty-five years--Enron who?--the crash and burn of the relentlessly hyped dot.com sector. One part historic overview, two parts searing indictman of the financial-technological-media nexus, Dot.Con--as the Wall Street Journal said last week--will be read by generations of Wharton and Harvard B school grads still unborn. Not since John Kenneth Galbraith have we had a popular economist with this kind of reach--or depth. Bravo.
Rating: 
Summary: Good book, but many details have already been told
Review: Dot.con: The Greatest Story Ever Sold lacks the same level of insight and originality. For most readers who stay abreast of current events in technology and the Internet, there is not a lot of new information in the book. The Internet bubble crashed some years ago, so a book on the subject can't be expected to be too original. The book details the anecdotes of such Internet personality as Jeff Bezos, Mary Meeker, James Cramer, Jeff Walker, and Henry Blodgett. Nonetheless, such stories have been detailed in numerous places numerous times. Cassidy does provide some rather good insights of the personality and mindset of Alan Greenspan, and he does a great job of showing an economic overview of the atmosphere that helped create the Internet bubble and how it led to its ultimate demise. If anything, Cassidy's brief biography of Greenspan is a well-written defense of the Fed Chairman. But for anyone who reads Forbes, Wired, or the New York Times on a regular basis, much of the details of Dot.con have already been told. This is proven in the book's bibliography, which references such periodicals numerous times.
Rating: 
Summary: Competent overview but not without flaws
Review: The first thing you'd say about this book is that, however clever the title, it's erroneous: this isn't the story of a "con" at all, it's the story of a speculative bubble. The whole point is that no-one was "conned" by the hot air. As Cassidy mentions from the outset, the prospectuses all contained large print health warnings in prominent places: "THIS COMPANY HAS NEVER MADE ANY MONEY, MOST LIKELY NEVER WILL" - but the punters still bought and bought. There were many psychological and sociological factors at play, but deception was not one of them. For all that, Dot Con is well researched, well written and entertaining into the bargain (my copy was the paperback second edition in which the typos & manifest errors spotted by keen Amazonians (none of which, in my view, was earth-shattering) had been corrected). Cassidy describes briefly and competently the history of the internet and the general financial environment of the last 50 years, and then takes you into the maelstrom of the bubble from 1995 to 2001, all of which he portrays in suitably stunned-mullet fashion. The new edition features a lengthy epilogue which surveys the wreckage and covers the subsequent inquiry into the practices of investment banking firms and their uneasy relationships with their research analysts, all of which is still very current. While he doesn't really dwell on it, I think Cassidy would come out in favour of more market regulation and intervention: He's especially critical of the Fed's approach to monetary policy and the atmosphere on the street which led to the boom in the first place. In some ways (though it's hardly fashionable to say so) the investment banking firms and fund managers were as much victims of this as anyone: while the roof is blowing off the market and the choice is to join in and make hay, or watch your competitors annexing large portions of your market share while you sit on your hands, it is a singular Wall Street firm indeed which chooses to sit the boom out. In any event this is a thoughtful and well put together book and serves as a pretty good overview of some of the most remarkable times in the history of modern finance.
Rating:
Summary: Keen analysis and overall good perspective
Review: This book is a thorough reflection on the "New Age" economy, which was particularly driven by NASDAQ, high technology for the corporate masses, and the advent of the Internet. As someone who was coming of age in the corporate world at the turn of the century, I used to feel very guilty about letting a stack of Washington Posts pile up--I wanted to read the latest analysis about what was happening in the Internet sector so I could understand how and why it was eroding. After reading Dot.con I don't feel as bad about throwing away that stack of business sections! Throughout most of the book I felt like I was reading a thoughtful and intelligent piece about the buildup, mania and erosion of the Internet economy. The author clearly did his homework with the analysis, but don't worry--the book isn't loaded with charts. For the most part I thought the author maintained an objective perspective that serves the reader well--though the analysis of September 11 struck me as hasty and a little sensational. I would most recommend this book to an audience that takes an intellectual curiosity in the 1995-2001 American economy. Other readers have unfairly criticized this book for being predictable and redundant--I'm not sure they realize this book is supposed to be a history book and not a novel!
Rating:
Summary: They could have been more thorough...
Review: An examination of the dot.com stock bubble. Amazing number of typos and wrong numbers. Interesting reading, but I really have a problem with books like this. They come off as knowing what was happening when it was happening. In reality, without the benefit of hindsight they are no more knowledgeable than we are.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, Highly Recommended.
Review: An excellent account of the rise and fall of the Dot Com bubble. Starts with a history of the internet and the world wide web and then moves into a detailed chronicle of the 1994-2001 internet stock market bubble. For someone who knew a lot about the internet from 1998 onwards but little about the economy behind it, I found it a very interesting read and a great education. A great story, well written. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the stock market, the internet and especially e-commerce.
Rating:
Summary: Finally, Somone 'Ventures' Down The Path and Crash
Review: Thank you, John Cassidy!
As the get rich quick, good time rock and roll, everybody is a genius lifestyle of the 1990's rolled on, more and more money went into investments, mutual funds, bonds and retirement instruments. Then, the 'next big thing' hit... Time to suck the money...... Ahhh, the internet... Everybody gets rich! Fund managers, investment banks, VCs and Joe six pack funnel their safe monies from their retirement harbors to the next big thing. Dot.Coms. The trouble is it all crashes in 2000 and the drain hits the economy in 2001 and 2002. Where'd all the money go? Mr. Cassidy does a great job laying out the different playing fields, the politics in control during this period, the major and minor figures and the end result. The speculators and the market hype were out of control. Forget the fact that most of the 'ideas' were unproven and the companies had no cash flow. The business models were overly optomisitc and the Federal Government tooted their horns. What a wealth of information. If one reads this with an open mind and a dose of reality you'll see where the money is (people still have it), why grandma has no retirement and why the economy of the 1990's was a shell game of double postings. It is laid out very well. Maybe too much emphasis is placed on Alan Greenspan and not enough on the SEC and the Department of the Treasury? Read this more than once..... There are great economic and investment lessons here. In some areas you would think you are reading the story of hustlers and confidence men.
Rating:
Summary: A Boom and Bust Book
Review: This is a generally interesting investigative report into the boom and bust of the Internet economy. An unexpected bonus is the appendix, a morbidly fascinating list of hundreds of failed dotcoms that have lost up to 99.9% of their value, if they even still exist. Cassidy's writing style is mostly enjoyable and he can keep the pages turning. Unfortunately there are several underlying problems to this book that keep it from being a real winner. One of Cassidy's big weaknesses is hard economics - watch for the maddeningly splotchy economic history and analysis, as an attempt to explain the dotcom craze, of chapters 9, 11, and 21. Cassidy's sense of historical flow is awful, as he spends most of the book (and especially the epilogue) making very unconvincing attempts to tie the dotocm craze into a historical continuum with the end of the Cold War and the Sept. 11 attacks. Plus basic fact checking is suspect, with many examples that have been noticed by other reviewers. The ones I noticed most were the claim that the Altair computer, invented in 1975, was named after a character in Star Wars, which appeared in 1977; plus the supposed invention of the modem by two garage dudes in 1978. Cassidy fails to mention that this was just a particular type of modem technology, although it was groundbreaking. But it wasn't THE modem, the basic technology of which had already been around for quite some time. Also watch out for the book's many typos, such as "Amber" Pennsylvania as the location of CDNow. It's actually Ambler. Cassidy also criticizes many of the players in the story, with a lordly they-should-have-known-better attitude, but he merely has the unfair advantage of 20/20 hindsight. These recurring writing and editing problems significantly damage the believability of this book, which could have been a very successful indictment of one of history's most ridiculous economic spectacles.
Rating:
Summary: So it really happened?
Review: I loved this book! For a while there I was starting to wonder if the dot com boom was just a dream. But this book spelled it out, it set in stone, and as a victim of it, I felt like it brought closure to my experiences. I don't feel so stupid and alone anymore, at least not any more than most of America that eventually went along with the ride. The book tells the stories of many of the biggest firms, how they rose to power, how they go their funding, and how the expanded under false ideas and predictions. The author was surprisingly harsh on the Federal Reserve, which was a refreshing point of view as apposed to all the simple-minded free-marketer propaganda that the pundits and government officials spew constantly in the media, along with their hero-worship of Alan Greenspan. This book told the story of the dot com boom and bust, and probably since it was an experience that hit me so close to home, I really enjoyed it. While many are debating whether this experience was really a 'bubble' because in a bubble things usually get worse after they burst, in this case productivity gains seem to be real, technology advances were real, and some real business did emerge (if only a few) from the carnage. But the dreams and promises of riches were definitely a bubble that burst for many. I myself was only in it for the experience from the start. But weren't we all...
Rating:
Summary: A good overview of the dot com bubble
Review: John Cassidy provides a good synopsis of the key events that shaped the dot com stock bubble in the mid to late 90s and provides some good insight into what went wrong and why. I would have preferred a bit more analysis as opposed to recitation of facts, however. The bulk of Cassidy's analysis only comes in the epilogue. Also, some further insight into why the main players did what they did would have been helpful.
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