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	Phil's Blogservations Wednesday, September 05, 2001 Posted by philgomes 1:54 PM Ben Stein Calls for an Investigation: Commentator, game show host, Nixon speechwriter, and actor Ben Stein is calling for an investigation of "those who inflated the bubble." I couldn't agree more. It is with unremitting glee that I observe the blathering proponents of the so-called "New Economy" and profit-challenged Internet companies are now coming under the microscopes and magnifiers of the investing public. (Take that Meeker! And that, Blodgett!) When a crazy and overheated investing world needed solid analysis, it got cheerleaders instead-- cheerleaders who pumped up ratings on stocks in their own portfolios. As I'm fond of saying in my PR circles: "Dot-coms make headlines; science makes history." This was true during the boom, and even more so during the bust. I'll take the time to offer one anecdote. When I was working with this one client several years ago during the boom, a competitor jumped into its space with a much-ballyhooed, yet problematic and over-marketed technology. Every industry analyst I talked to (except one, whose reports were voluminously purchased by this competitor) talked at length about the various problems that this newcomer's technology suffered. During a team meeting, I discussed the matter with my boss at the time. "You're not worried about this new competitor?" boss asked. "No," I said. I then went into the various reasons, from a business and engineering perspective, why the technology would have a trouble gaining a foothold. Not wanting to stoop so low as to have to actually understand the technology, I was interrupted with "None of that matters anymore, Phil." "Huh?" "You don't understand, Phil," boss told me in a by-then-familiar condescending tone. "They are funded by leading venture capitalists and they have a good story." And, thus, the conversation ended. Years later, this competitor is struggling like an unlucky lap dog caught between a Lay-Z-Boy chair and Dom Deluise's ass, thanks, yes, to technical problems and bad business decisions. The point is this: We look to VCs to lead us to the next big thing, and all that they did was follow blindly. We looked to Wall Street analysts to provide uncompromised research, and we got The Great Dot-Com Booster Club. HOME | OBSESSIONS | FAQ | HEROES | CAREER | BLOG | CONTACT Note that the views expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect those of Phil's employer, its business partners, its clients, or anyone or anything that doesn't come from Phil.	ABOUT THIS BLOG This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. EMAIL phil[at] philgomes[[dot}]com SYNDICATE Feedburner ARCHIVE YAHOO! IM SKYPE WISH LIST PITCH POLICY MY PHOTOS www.flickr.com Photostream RSS Enter your Email Powered by FeedBlitz COMMENT AND TRACKBACK POLICY Comments and trackbacks are unmoderated, though I will delete the patently offensive ones. Any comments and trackbacks are the opinions of the individual writer of those comments and trackbacks, and not those of Phil Gomes, his employer, its clients, or its business partners. If you have a bone to pick, bug the people who wrote the comment or trackback.