Thursday, October 16, 2008

hackoff.com, by Tom Evslin

hackoff.com: An Historic Murder Mystery set in the Internet Bubble and Rubble, by Tom Evslin

With stock charts, email threads, chat transcripts, and police interviews mixed in with traditional storytelling techniques, the format of this novel was just as interesting as the story itself. The stories I should say; there are two main threads that weave through the book: one tells the tale of the rise and fall of a .com startup during the internet bubble and the other of the murder of the CEO of said company. The .com story was fascinating; having lived through the 90’s myself working at a variety of software startups much of this rang true. Arrogant executives, selfish salesmen, primary and secondary offerings, bitter rivals (“The [buyout] price sucks. And it is in antihack stock, which sucks. And it is from antihack, which sucks.”), and the ignorance of message boards (“Your an idiot or just getting reddy to dump your stock.”)—Evslin is clearly well acquainted with the tech craziness at the millennium. In the murder mystery, none of the characters were obvious heroes or villains, so we are kept guessing right up to the end. The conclusion is a bit of a stretch, but doesn’t distract from an otherwise enjoyable read. Truly a unique book.

First Sentence:
New York, NY—April 1, 2003—(BUSINESS WIRE) hackoff.com (NASDAQ:HOFC) announced today that the company’s Chairman and CEO, Larry Lazard, was found dead in his corporate office of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.

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