Starving to Death on 200 Million: The Short, Absurd Life of the Industry Standard Book

The Industry Standard sought to chronicle the world of Internet business, but instead became one of its spectacular failures--and its collapse turned out to be a funnier story than you'd expect. It was not that long ago that The Industry Standard was an international publishing phenomenon. Founded in 1998 with the grandiose goal of being "the BusinessWeek of the Internet economy," it soared to unprecedented heights during the dot-com boom, with far-flung bureaus, a thriving conference business, and a seemingly endless supply of cash. In 2000 alone, The Standard published more than 7,000 ad pages, generating revenues of over $200 million--more than any other magazine in the history of America. Little did anyone imagine that the following August the entire organization would file for bankruptcy. Starving to Death on $200 Million a Year is James Ledbetter's mock-heroic chronicle of the magazine that lived large and died young: the wild dreams, the sudden success, the wanton excesses, the fatal hemorrhage. From his vantage point as one of The Standard's top editors, he saw up close how it succumbed to the same gold-rush fever as the Internet businesses it was supposed to be chronicling, realizing too late that he had been infected as well. As America continues to reckon with its post-nineties hangover, Ledbetter offers a sardonic look at a thriving business that died on the verge of taking on the world.Read More