Inside the Cult of Kibu: And Other Adventures of the Millennial Goldrush [Hardcover]

The dot-com era was absurd. I knew it, and so did my friends at other companies. Not many actually believed the dreams being sold to investors, but like the merchants who sold shovels to the miners of the California Gold Rush, we were happy to play along. This "Inside the Cult" is a grating and inaccurate retelling of some of the excesses of the time. It has several humorous anecdotes.

My own experience with dot-coms was limited to Kibu, my tenure beginning just before Ms Gottlieb's and ending just after her departure. As one of the few men in the organization, it is interesting to compare our experiences; for me it was a pecular workplace for which I was dispassionate, for Ms. Gottlieb, a social trauma. As with her previous writings of the matter, the section on Kibu is written from the point of view of the caustic and unpopular seventh-grade girl that the nice kids ignored. Imagine the balance and accuracy of an expose written by that girl and you will understand the telling of Kibu in this tale.

Not having first-hand knowledge of the rest of the telling, I cannot adequately judge the stories not directly about Kibu. But if the recounting of the rest of the dot-com stories is as accurate as this, I cannot consider it anything but fiction.

The delicious irony of this book is that it exists. While its telling indirectly condemns the times for excess, wastefulness and lack of meaningful contribution, Ms. Gottlieb's book is a second-order effect: it continues in that same dot-com tradition, riding on the digital coattails of a well-recognized flop, this book a product of even less meaning.

If you are looking for historical accuracy, try Michael Lewis' interesting read, "The New New Thing". If you are looking for humor, try David Sedaris' "Me Talk Pretty" (his tales are probably closer to accuracy). If you are looking for a spiteful whine by someone with bruised ego, you'll love this book.

As enjoyable as it is to read; however, at the end the book leaves the reader with little else than a sense of the absurdity of the whole dot-com bubble. There is no discussion of why dot-coms failed, or even why some gathered the "cult" following that they did. Instead, the book might be best described as the transcription of a bar conversation: every few minutes you will laugh, but at the end of the night you really haven't gotten a whole lot out of it.

If you were part of the dot-com euphoria, than you probably will enjoy the book as a memoir. If however, you are trying to learn about, understand or analyze, you will be left severely disappointed by Inside the Cult of Kibu.

However, most of the book is basically the same pretentious self-important name-dropping and glad-handing that that defined the whole dot.com era. Many of the anecdotes are pretentious "remember whens" from people with weapons-grade arrogance. Its funny to listen to self-important 30-somethings bash self-important 20-somethings, as if the 30-somethings, because they worked at Wendy's after college, somehow have this deep well of wisdom the 20-somethings don't. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man will be king.

I also became a bit tired of reading sob stories from individuals who obviously live lives of extreme privilege bemoan the burden of managing morons and chaos. When I hear these well-to-do ex-dot.commers whine about mismanagement and stupidity its hard to have any sympathy for them. They never had to really suffer or work; they just rode the wave and didn't win.

Okay, I am being a bit harsh. And my reaction is really why I gave this book 3 starts. As pretentious, preening, and self-important as this book is - it does a pretty good job of capturing exactly why the dot.com era was such a joke.

This isn't a bad book, or a great book. It's interesting, its a quick read, and its got some good points. Just be prepared to wade through the pretentious BS.