Linux For Suits

October 2000

At a party last year in San Franciso I was delivered an epiphany. The agent was a young man I had met before. He was smart, energetic and working on his second or third startup. When I asked him what his new company was up to, he said "we're an arms merchant to the portals industry." I pressed him for specifics, but got back nothing but BuzzLatin that made his new .com sound like every other new .com. Since I wasn't getting any clarity about his business, I decided to ask about — well, his business.

"How are sales?" I said.

"Great!" he replied. "We just closed our second round."

And there was my epiphany. This guy's buisness wasn't selling goods and services to customers. It was selling promises to investors. This was The New Economy. Or a fat corner of it, anyway.

Doc Searls is Senior Editor of Linux Journal and co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto.