Stories of Dot-Com Millionaires Who Lost it All
12 August 2006My 1st Million at 33 has highlighted an old post where he explained his story of making, and then losing, several million dollars because he couldn’t cash out his stock options in time. This prompted several others to chime in with comments on their own meteoric rises and falls, including one guy who was worth $80 million at one point before he lost it all:
Without being too specific, I started an advertising company in back in 97 with the goal of being acquired by one of the two big banner ad network players at the time. Sure enough, not even after 1 year in operation they both came a knocking. A deal was struck with another company to form a joint venture and that JV would acquire us. Got several million, some cash, mostly stock in the JV. That JV eventually listed on NASDAQ in 2000, and my stock shot up to $80 million or so before settling at around $16mil for a while. Not bad for mid 30s. I watched the company grow from a single office and six employees, to nearly 300 in 10 offices, in appx 9 months! The burn rate was astronomical!
The tales are important for the cautionary note they should serve – money isn’t real until it’s in your pockets. And if you ever hit a windfall like that, make sure to cash at least some of it out.
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