We provide employees shares of the operating units and shares of CMGI, because it takes sometimes years to incubate these companies. With CMGI shares, they benefit from the fruits of their labor, even if they haven't benefited from a public offering yet. I learned a lot about how the world perceives us. It was time well spent - especially because we ended up getting a good investment out of it. CEOs want to make sure that their shareholders and the market understand the company's story.
Message boards are one of the great vehicles for group communication.
Vertical online services are a big opportunity yet to be realized. VerticalNet's doing it. It turns out they don't cannibalize each other - and Hollywood alone is adding half a million members a month. You seem to thrive on the operations side. A lot of venture people see the grass as greener on the operations side, and a lot of operations people see the grass as greener on the venture side.