Between dot-com dissolutions, a weakening economy and layoffs, one CEO decided to ink his thoughts on paper.
David Fry, founder and CEO of $32 million Web services company Fry Multimedia, recently sent a letter to more than 200 of his employees to fess up that he's happy the dot-com bubble exploded.
The comments are intriguing coming from Fry, whose company develops Web sites for brands like Crate & Barrel and 1-800-Flowers.com, and was heavily involved in last year's dot-com mania.
"Don't get me wrong. It was exciting to see the explosion of Internet businesses," he writes. "When Amazon.com started advertising on TV, I could tell my mom, 'See! That's the stuff we do! It's not just for geeks anymore.'"
For the most part, Fry says he enjoyed the attention from VCs and grew fond of sock puppets and other e-business mascots. "But somehow, it felt wrong to me," he writes. Fry wondered if eight furniture Web sites were really necessary and could survive.
By the second half of 1999, Fry says pressures to grow quickly became so strong the company turned away from its proven business processes, giving up profitability to join the "cool kids behind the garage after school."
"Of course, I'm sorry about the business failures, the layoffs, and the general doom and gloom. It has hurt a lot of people," Fry writes. "But more people were going to be hurt if the cycle wasn't halted sooner rather than later."
