Valley of the Boom (2018) s01e04 Episode Script
Part 4: priority inversion
1 MARC: Did Microsoft start bundling their browser with their PCs? JIM: That would take a huge bite out of our market share.
Did they just threaten us? Maybe that's a good thing.
Maybe they just broke the law.
MARC: AOL's big deal with Microsoft didn't miraculously lift their stock price and now they're crawling back to us.
Let them find another lifeline.
WISKOWSKI: You can stop selling, we're in.
- MICHAEL: All right.
- We'll be in touch.
GOODIN: This guy who has been calling himself Michael Fenne is really David Kim Stanley, fugitive of the law.
CUBAN: Why did Advance Equities give Pixelon $10 million-plus? Because they wanted to take Pixelon public and pump it and dump it on unsuspecting shareholders and make a lot more money.
STEPHAN: We're onto something here, guys, I can feel it.
Mike, Ed, I think you guys feel it.
We're connecting people to each other.
It's kinda powerful.
We're actually not based here.
Todd and I, we started a little company based out of New York.
- PATTY: Hmm.
- STEPHAN: It's like an online community.
It's called TheGlobe.
com.
PATTY: TheGlobe.
com that just got a $20 million in investments? STEPHAN: You wanna what an IPO feels like? It feels like you're about to die.
(traffic) (heartbeat) MAN: Jump already! STEPHAN: You're standing at heaven's gate, your whole life is flashing before your eyes, and there's a judgment coming.
DARRIN: Hey! Hey, hey, hey, hey, stop! Stop! Um, look, uh, before you make a decision that you cannot take back, I need you to listen to me.
I know it doesn't feel like it right now, but You.
Matter.
Why don't you just come on down, huh? I'll make you a nice chamomile tea, and we can chat this thing right on out, that sound good? KRIZELMAN: It's a metaphor.
DARRIN: For real? KRIZELMAN: We're in a metaphor here.
- STEPHAN: C'mon, man! - DARRIN: You know, how about this! Next time we're in metaphor, you let me know, okay? So I'm not out here having a friggin' heart attack?! REPORTER (over TV): If you thought the Internet bubble was about to burst, think again.
While the Nasdaq, points were up more than 70 points, a record high.
Internet darling, Yahoo is closing in on a gain of 2,000%.
TARA: I think Wall Street built and ruined the web.
DAN: So there was just the rush, the machine, that was investors getting IPOs, getting the pop and getting out.
We we're always told, "you want the long-term investor," well, long-term meant maybe 18 hours.
Felt like a money-making scheme for everybody involved.
REPORTER (over TV): The usual roles for valuing a stock such as revenues and earnings no longer apply.
GOODIN: Suddenly, some of the major requirements that had existed in the past for for being able to do an IPO just went away.
Nobody knew really how to measure this type of stuff.
REPORTER (over TV): eToys says heavy advertising is necessary to establish a brand name.
MAN: The most important thing for these companies to do right now is to establish their market position, not to be profitable.
CUBAN: Companies with only a website were going public and making tens of millions of dollars, or hundreds of millions or billions of dollars on paper.
DAN: All of a sudden you were printing millionaires out of nowhere, there was this paper that suddenly you could sell because these companies were going public.
REPORTER: GeoCities went public last August was up about 340%.
ED: Valuation prior to let's call this the Internet boom, wouldn't have mattered.
But because the media paid such attention to the initial public offerings at the time that if you weren't worth a billion dollars and your competitor was, it was almost like this stain on your company.
The myth-making was part of the product making.
MICHAEL: (clears throat) Here you go.
Mmm.
(laughing) SHEILA: Have a wonderful, positive day.
(kiss) MICHAEL: You know what I see in every cubicle here? A millionaire! That means you.
And you.
And you.
And, hey, don't think I forgot about your niece, you have her come see me, we'll fix her up with a job.
Hey, buddy.
Highlights bring out your eyes.
Never discount the value of a makeover.
Hey, people! Oh, hey, I'm glad you're here, we need to talk about something.
MICHAEL: Hey, you are on it.
Isn't he on it? Hey, you all are on it.
The energy in here is electric, I can feel it coursing through each and every one of you.
I know you feel it too, because you all are making history in here.
This is the biggest, star-studded musical event ever, okay? A little bit country, a lot rock and roll, and everything in between.
So keep moving forward and get it done.
Get.
It.
Done.
Okay? GARY: It's amazing what can happen once money arrives.
And the idea was to have this big crazy party with all this you know, high-name talent I think to you know to market the company, to be able to say hey, look, look at what we're doing.
MICHAEL: Remember, we're announcing to the world, Pixelon is number one in Internet broadcasting.
"Coming to you live, full motion, full screen, full speed.
Pitch-perfect.
" Write that down.
Pitch-perfect.
Oh, hey, that ain't nothing compared to the vision I had last night.
The heavens suddenly parted and what was previously dark was suddenly illuminated and clear, so very, very clear.
The writing, right in front of my eyes, big gold letters: iBash.
We eventually settled on iBash, which was a suggestion that I had made so I'm actually the person who named iBash.
SOCOLOF: iBash.
It's not bad, man.
MICHAEL: It's absolutely good.
Right? SOCOLOF: Oh, hey, we gotta' talk budget.
MICHAEL: Hey, no limited thinking.
I made you a promise whatever you need, you'd have.
iBash was going to be a way that Pixelon could immediately hit the market with a huge amount of content.
MICHAEL: Hey, we gotta get the Who.
You know what I mean? With Internet Explorer 3.
0, we finally had something on Netscape.
We finally had something that we were frankly proud of.
Uh, up to that point in time the browsers that we shipped were kind of a joke.
And it was the first one in which we actually won competitive reviews.
JOY: That really was their first browser where they took, I don't know exactly what the numbers were, but they started to take a big chunk of our market share.
They bundled Internet Explorer into their operating system with Windows 95 or somewhere in there for free in their operating system which was 90% of the market.
That was a devastating blow.
MARC: How long? JIM: Three, four quarters before it blows up our bottom line.
CLARK: It's the damn definition of predatory pricing! Which last time I checked, was anti-trust level illegal.
Am I wrong? There's definitely an argument to be made, but I think CLARK: Nobody can compete against free.
MARC: Plus it's still an inferior piece of coding.
JIM: Roberta, what do you got for us? Our focus needs to be on the consent decree Microsoft signed with the government.
It forbids the company from using its operating system and software dominance to squash competition.
Which is exactly what they're doing.
- JIM: Is that right? - MARC: Doesn't surprise me.
CLARK: Okay, Microsoft is evil.
Got it.
Did you all hear the part where Jim says we have three or four quarters before we're dead? JIM: Are you sure you guys don't want to sit down? CLARK: We gotta staunch the bleeding before everyone sees how badly we've been hit.
We get out of the water where the shark has the advantage and back in the forest where the bear has the advantage.
MARC: Sharks and bears, oh my.
I'm saying we make have to build something that is undeniable, so that companies and consumers have no choice but to come back to us.
E-commerce, business-to-business.
What's gonna' stop Microsoft from ripping that out from under us as well? MARC: Oh, I don't know.
Laws? ROBERTA: Let me handle that.
We can't force the DOJ to prosecute, but we can give them all the ammunition they'll need.
JIM: All right.
Thanks, Roberta.
Look, we're small and agile, and they need to keep feeding the Window's beast.
So why don't just keep our heads down, focus on what we can control? Got it? (whistling) GROUP: Hello.
Blow us a kiss up here.
Nice spoon.
SPOKESPERSON: TheGlobe.
com.
Join a club, telekinetics.
GROUP: Hey, baby! Gettin' lonely up here.
Hey, hey, hey.
(crash) GIRL: Who wants buffalo wings? SPOKESPERSON: From telekinetics to football fanatics, you'll find thousands of clubs to choose from: GROUP: TheGlobe.
com.
SPOKESPERSON: Build a world around you.
The Internet market was simply heating up more and more.
GeoCities had just filed to go public.
eBay and Yahoo and Netscape, they were just really rocketing and we realized, dammit, even with Mike's 20 million, we can't stay private.
We're gonna actually have to go public.
We had this huge amount of traffic, but we did not have that paired with a working business model.
We had to support what used to be tens of thousands of paying members and now millions of free members and so we had to pay for more servers, server farms, more electricity, and more employees and more programmers.
Millions of dollars were rapidly vanishing.
STEPHAN: These IPOs are becoming this rite of passage that legitimizes these companies, that distinguishes the interesting Internet companies from the best Internet companies.
We met with all the major banks.
But there were two banks in particular that were hungry for this and they hadn't had yet a breakout IPO in the tech sector.
I guess we made the fateful decision of going with the Bear Stearns.
So We'd seen Lycos become a multi-hundred-million-dollar company.
We'd seen Excite become a multi-hundred-million-dollar company.
We'd seen Netscape become a multi-hundred-million, or billion-dollar company.
And these other startups had similar audience sizes to us and were maybe building technologies that were comparable.
No, if you think about Listen.
- A little too much like Geocities - Nevermind Geocities STEPHAN: And so, those comparables of traffic size and audience started to equate, get that higher valuation.
KRIZELMAN: Aren't those numbers a little high? STEPHAN: Maybe not high enough? So before we went on the road show, uh, the bankers and Mike and Ed wanted us to have a particular professional look.
KRIZELMAN: We did not know how to pitch.
We did not know how to dress.
We did not know any part of the process really.
STEPHAN: They asked us to also get a coach who could teach us how to present properly and the physicality of it, because Todd and I each had these little weird idiosyncratic behaviors that needed to be addressed.
KRIZELMAN: Think of online community like your offline community.
STEPHAN: Except much bigger.
In the next few years there's going to be 100 million people on the Internet.
COACH: Do you have to take a piss? STEPHAN: Uh, no.
KRIZELMAN: We didn't understand the communication style, and this was incredibly frustrating to Steph.
COACH: Are you defending the goal on a free kick? STEPHAN: No.
Then why are you standing there with your hands in front of your balls? - (chuckles) - COACH: Huh? Now we're totally vulnerable if they do kick a soccer ball at us.
COACH: Something you want to share with the class? - STEPHAN: No.
Yeah.
- KRIZELMAN: We're good.
STEPHAN: Todd and I had always been dressing totally casually.
The bankers and Mike and Ed were all in agreement: this is a traditional road show, we need to look like we're professionals and we need to look as old as we can look.
Oh, yeah, oh, yeah Put 'em up like you don't care Oh, yeah, oh, yeah Put 'em up like you don't care Shake your derrier, shake your derrier, shake it Shake your derrier, shake your derrier, shake it Shake your derrier, shake your derrier, shake it Shake your derrier, shake your derrier, shake it Shake your derrier just like that (pager beeping) KRIZELMAN: Oh, crap.
Servers are down.
Uh, I'm sorry, I gotta go.
STEPHAN: I'll go.
KRIZELMAN: No, no, you're definitely better dealing with the grownups.
- STEPHAN: Am not.
- KRIZELMAN: Nice try.
How great will it be when we can just get back to running our company? KRIZELMAN: With 30 million more in capital to play with.
STEPHAN: This is actually happening, isn't it? KRIZELMAN: This is actually happening! ROBERTA: We'd been complaining to the DOJ, loudly, and getting nowhere; but the bundling gave us our strongest argument for antitrust.
We wrote a 220 page white paper that compiled all Microsoft's crimes and misdemeanors.
GATES (over TV): The reality of the high-technology industry.
ROBERTA: And read like a pot boiler.
GATES (over TV): Good for consumers.
JIM: Oh, hey Roberta.
Yeah, there was talk of publishing it as a book, court of public opinion.
The title wasn't exactly sexy.
Jim Barksdale thought that releasing the white paper to the public would make the company look weak.
The main thing about a smoking gun is it means someone's been shot.
So it was decided that the white paper would have an audience of one.
The DOJ said that if we presented "credible evidence", they'd jump on it like a dog on a bone.
GATES (over TV): All of Microsoft's actions have been completely legal.
Of course the entire DOJ team investigating at the time consisted of two lawyers in a San Francisco field office.
So things moved a hell of a lot slower than we'd hoped.
BRIAN: From what I saw Pixelon's goal was to You have to understand, it was before YouTube, so there wasn't any idea of an online video portal, and I think that's what Pixelon was really going for, was to be able to have this destination where you could go watch a ton of video.
The idea was to get as much content populated on the site as possible.
BARRY: Okay, so you switch here, change input, it gets run through the intake encoder.
- WOMAN: Okay.
- BARRY: Then I edit output and upload to the server.
- And now it's on our website.
- WOMAN: Okay.
BRIAN: The technology that we were utilizing at Pixelon was definitely new and it was definitely interesting and there wasn't a lot like it out there.
Full screen, TV style video on the Internet.
There just weren't a lot of people that were doing that kind of thing.
BARRY: So he told you about the box? WOMAN: Yeah, what's up with that? He said he spoke with the CIA, that he's got it booby trapped? BARRY: Yeah, I know.
It's weird.
Just don't look, don't touch, don't ask.
WOMAN: Okay.
GARY: That black rack mounted box was off limits for anybody to open.
It was explained to us that each of them had been booby trapped to prevent reverse engineers from opening it up and stealing the technology out from under us.
So the booby trap was a acid pill, it was explained to us that as soon as the case was open, an acid pill would break, spilling acid into the computer and destroying the internal components of it.
I'm not really sure if the protection inside there was supposed to harm the individual going in there or destroy the technology.
My sense of things was it was supposed to destroy the technology.
That rumor came down from the top.
- BARRY: So, I was thinking - MICHAEL: Uh-huh.
BARRY: With our broadcasting the Iowa Straw Poll next week.
Hey, did I tell you that my good friend Ronnie Reagan called to congratulate me on our deal? Yeah, just yesterday.
He and Nancy are very excited about what Pixelon's doing do for the GOP, bringing 'em into the Internet age.
BARRY: Exactly, it's our biggest event so far, so I was thinking, we should do a test run.
MICHAEL: Why would I do that? BARRY: Well, to find out if there are any kinks, and if there are, iron them out.
MICHAEL: You think there are kinks? BARRY: No, no, no, I'm not saying there are any kinks.
I just MICHAEL: I'm just messing with you, Barry.
I appreciate your diligence, but this is way above your pay grade.
Engineering and high-tech stuff's best left to me and my programmer.
Okay? Barry, you look exhausted.
Very pale.
Are you tired? BARRY: Yeah, I've been working 18-hour shifts.
MICHAEL: Okay.
Here's what I want you to do.
I want you to go home, take the rest of the day off, just get some sleep, okay? BARRY: Thanks.
But if you do a test run, if I could be there.
MICHAEL: "Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise; and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.
" Proverbs 17:28.
The Lord fuels us to do his work, but the body is weak.
(door closes) MARC: Where the hell is the DOJ? JIM: Gathering their evidence.
The wheels of justice don't turn on Netscape time.
MARC: How much more credible does it have to get? JIM: We can't mistake a clear view for a short distance.
MARC: Things Marc Andreessen doesn't like: nostalgia, parties and physical displays of just touching.
Not necessarily in that order.
I never took you for someone whose plan for the future relies on white knights.
Yeah, well screw you and the patience you're trying to teach me.
JIM: My pleasure.
You know, I learned a while ago that if you make your mission real clear and a lot of smart people work on it, you'll figure it out.
We got a simple mission here and you know it's never really changed.
Keep the Internet open.
Keep creating products that are important and relevant.
Make a whole lot of people's lives a whole lot better, something we call changing the world.
TEAM: Yeah! So your job is to keep running as fast as you can toward that cliff.
My job is to keep moving the cliff.
STEPHAN: We were ready to go on the actual road show.
We wanted to go as fast as we could because our competitors, they, they, you know, GeoCities, they had already gone public.
They were safely on the other side, flush with cash, and we were sitting here hurrying up trying to see if we could make it before this IPO window closed.
To refresh your memory, a road show's where you go and whore yourself out to all the major institutional investors and big money managers in the country to drum up interest in your IPO.
You get five minutes to tell These stodgy, grey-haired guys what the Internet is, and why they need to own a piece of your company.
STEPHAN: All in 10 luxurious, fun-filled days.
Yay.
Remember the Netscape road show? JIM: Goodness.
Thank you for having us and thank you for inviting the entire world.
(laughter) KRIZELMAN: Yeah, ours wasn't quite like that.
STEPHAN: So what do you guys think? KRIZELMAN: Mm.
Any questions? We started on our road show, which is expensive and time consuming.
And in that time the NASDAQ really falls apart.
REPORTER (over TV): Wall Street is growing tired with the Internet itself.
The once red hot initial public offering market has cooled recently.
Things were a bit in a flux, investors were definitely a little cautious here.
Nearly 80 new issues have been yanked so far this year.
STEPHAN: I mean, it was unbelievable.
And you couldn't script this thing.
We just filed to go public and you're telling us the market just died? STEPHAN: Thank God only five more cities.
KRIZELMAN: Six.
Did that guy really say, "Well I guess all you young people will have to go back to working for a living now?" At least he didn't keep leaving the room to check his stocks.
You know, according to the bottle, you're actually supposed to wash cold medicine down with gin, not vodka.
STEPHAN: It's soothing.
170 other companies have already pulled their IPOs.
KRIZELMAN: 174.
STEPHAN: Everyone's asking, why are we out here? KRIZELMAN: We're either braver or dumber.
And more in need of money.
STEPHAN: Oh, thank you for driving that point home, that would have been totally lost on me.
Do you want to go into how if this doesn't happen we'll have to fire Why don't you tell me how many people, since you always go into it? KRIZELMAN: Always? You want to get into always now? All right, one more.
SEAN: Why don't you work? This sucks! Come on, why don't you work? No, no, no, no! No! No! No! CODER: Oh, suck it, ah! SEAN: No! TARA: Damn it, Sean! - SEAN: What? - TARA: "What?" SEAN: I think I broke it.
TARA: Yep, we're gonna have to change the installer code.
Three engineers, 12 hour days, add on 3 more days, guys.
- SEAN: I'm sorry.
- CODER: No, not sorry.
Booze.
TARA: Tequila, please.
Top shelf, none of that no label crap.
Bribery booze was a glorious tradition where every time the build team got completely hammered by something the engineers did, um, usually, inadvertently, they would bring us some booze.
And by version 4 of the Navigator, actually we were kinda calculating how successful the development of the Navigator was going by how much booze the build team had.
We'd drink it all too! It was like, oh, God, it's 10:00 at night, who wants a shot, right? Totally unprofessional, but it was awesome.
Who wants a shot? (loud crash) Okay.
SEAN: Ah, it's hideous.
TARA: You know, Microsoft was in town, they had this big like cardboard or plastic board you know "e" logo.
And, yeah, they bring it over and they plant it right in front of Netscape headquarters.
TECH: Unbelievable.
TARA: "It's just not fair.
Good people should'nt have to feel bad.
The IE team.
" SEAN: That's their idea of funny, what the hell does it even mean? CODER: They talk trash as lame as they write code.
ROSANNE: I do remember that event.
(laughs) You know, I just thought it was a desperate act.
I remember thinking that it made them look dumb.
You know, it's sort of like, when you're a big giant and you have to go stomp on the smaller competitor? You give the smaller competitor credibility.
TARA: The word spread quickly and somebody got the brilliant idea, like, oh, well, we've got Mozilla.
TODD: Mozilla, was this dinosaur like creature, which was our mascot for our company and our browser.
And so we put that on top of their brand and put a market share number up there and said, "We're still dominant.
" TEAM: Yeah, whoo! I can't believe they gave us this opportunity to have this totally symbolic, Mozilla's totally stomping on Internet Explorer and it was really glorious.
(Andreessen laughing) CUBAN: What Pixelon said was that they had a super whizzbang codec that blew away everybody else.
And that was their big lie.
GARY: Pixelon had never streamed anything live at this point.
We did stream the Iowa Straw Pole.
TEAM: Yeah! (clapping) (cheering) GARY: When we streamed the Iowa Straw Pole that was the first time it was exposed that Pixelon had no capability of doing anything live.
We tapped into I think it was Iowa Public Television and we were actually receiving that signal via satellite from the satellite truck that we'd just paid 100 grand for encoding it, but not with Pixelon's technology.
It wasn't possible.
BRIAN: The claim was that the technology was proprietary, it was all built in house from the ground up by Pixelon.
GOODIN: Searches that I did with the U.
S.
Patent office didn't turn up a single registered patent.
GARY: People did see it on the Internet.
They didn't see it full-screen, full motion.
MICHAEL: Plenty more, this is just for the toast.
(toasting and cheering) GARY: The technology that's supposed to be delivering this over the Internet is the thing that we're supposed to be delivering.
When it came time for us to actually demonstrate that, we failed.
Not only did we fail, we didn't even try.
We used, um Windows Media Encoder and the Windows Media Player to actually facilitate that.
STEPHAN: Bear Stearns told us all the institutions are spooked.
Everyone was saying it looks like we're entering a recessionary period.
If we couldn't go public, it was game over for going public.
HIPSTER: Hey, can I still get into the IPO? Is it too late for friends and family? STEPHAN: You are neither.
You know, I think some degree of panic was setting in.
You want to be confident and project how great things are going, right? 'Cause all the other guys are living it up and their careers are going great and the money's rolling in.
And meanwhile in the back of your mind you've got this problem that your company might just die.
JENN: What? What? (laughs) What? What? STEPHAN: I could take you through the whole thing, but suffice it to say: I'd never met anyone like Jenn before.
KRIZELMAN: Guten morgen! STEPHAN: I know what I'm smiling about.
The question is, what are you smiling about? KRIZELMAN: We got the call! Bear Stearns is getting inbound calls from all the companies we met with, they're interested.
STEPHAN: IPO, baby.
I-P-O! Whoo! - Three days, we only have until? - KRIZELMAN: Friday.
(phone rings) Hello, it's Jerry from Bear Stearns.
Jerry, I'm here with Steph right now, we are so excited.
Bear Stearns called us up and said, listen the markets very turbulent, we strongly recommend you just get out into the public, that's what's most important.
Take what you can and just go and do it.
STEPHAN: Todd and I, being as inexperienced as we were, we didn't know how hard we could push back.
If we're getting all this unprecedented demand that Bear Stearns was telling about, why can't we move the price? Yesterday you told us we have 45 million shares of demand for our three-million share offering.
BANKER: And two days ago we couldn't sell a single share.
EGAN: C'mon, we gotta get it higher than $8.
BANKER: Pricing is a delicate balance.
Okay, you've got to leave enough meat on the bone so people will want to keep coming back and feeding.
KRIZELMAN: Nearly twelve times demand's "not a little meat.
" ED: There has to be a middle ground.
(Izzy sneezing) - Gesundheit.
- KRIZELMAN: Hey, are you lost? - What's your name? - IZZY: I'm Izzy Young.
BANKER: Okay, well, Izzy Young, you c IZZY: And I'm pretty good at math, so don't worry, I can make this simple for you.
When a company is trading, the price of its stock is made by something called supply and demand.
But in an IPO, the bankers already figured that out and they come up with an offering price.
It's kind of hard to tell who makes the most money in IPOs, so let's see the winnings if they price it at $8 and it sells at $8.
This bigger pile is for our guys and this smaller pile's for the old dudes.
But don't feel too bad for the bankers.
Grape jelly, ugh.
Okay, now let's see what happens when the stock is underpriced.
The stock shoots up like a rocket on the first day of trading, blows up 100%! Bankers, it turns out, are really good to their BFFs and big clients, Friends of Finance, they get onto IPOs before anyone else! Okay, now let's see what happens when the price for all this triples! The bank's big clients can sells the stock right away for huge profits.
And pass some of that back to their bankers in commissions and more business.
So yeah, they get a ton of money, but everyone else, these other people who came onto the scene like three months ago who didn't even create anything, get so much more.
It's totally not fair, but once you agree to an offering price, no matter what, that's all you get.
And that is how the game is played.
When I grow up, I want to be an investment banker.
BARRY: So, the thing is, I was looking at our encoded video for the Straw Poll and MICHAEL: And? BARRY: It's Windows Media Player.
A doctored version, but still.
Lesser minds cast aspersions.
That's what lesser minds do.
Wrought by jealousy no doubt.
Think, for a minute just how crazy you sound right now.
And, if, if you admit that you made a mistake now, I'll forgive you.
There will be beneficence.
BARRY: There's no mistake.
The Microsoft branding was scrubbed using a customization feature that's actually in Windows Media Player.
MICHAEL: That's quite a story.
And here I thought we'd come to an understanding the other day, about your limitations.
BARRY: Okay, well you know what? Despite my limitations, I was able to see that our whole company is built around modifying an existing program from the biggest company in the world! It's completely illegal and just wrong.
You know, I was genuinely excited about being a part this, something completely new, but nothing here makes sense anymore.
Nothing.
MICHAEL: You know the thing about a germ, Barry? It's nothing.
A small thing really.
Can't even see it with the naked eye.
You can wipe it away with your sleeve and not even know it.
But if you don't wipe it out, it spreads.
It divides.
And soon it infects not only one, but many.
It becomes like water turned into blood, fiery hail, it becomes the pestilence.
For the greater good of all, I can't let that happen.
That's sad.
- BARRY: I'm sorry, what are you - MICHAEL: You're a germ.
You are a germ, Barry.
Now, get out! Get out of my office! Get out of my company! You hear what I say? You're fired! I swear to God, get your ass out of here! Good evening, beautiful.
SHEILIA: Well, good evening.
MICHAEL: I think it's time for an upgrade.
What do you say we trade this thing in for a Rolls? SHEILA: A Rolls Royce? MICHAEL: Now a lot of folks like the silver, but they do make a Peacock Blue that's quite fetching.
Think on it.
SHEILA: Oh, my gosh.
Okay.
You must have had a good day at work.
MICHAEL: Things at work just keeps getting better and better.
SHEILA: Really? MICHAEL: Always.
(car starts) We went We made a trip to Washington and met with the Department of Justice.
And kicked off the anti, the antitrust law suit.
ROBERTA: Finally the DOJ took on the contempt case and had it put before a District Court Judge.
It was out of our hands at that point.
All we could do was keep waiting.
Until REPORTER (over TV): Surprising everyone, federal judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered Microsoft to cease and desist its practice of forcing PC makers to carry its Internet Explorer browser.
GATES (over TV): What the government's saying is that we shouldn't put as many features into our products.
It's like telling someone that can't buy a car, they've gotta go buy the motor, they've gotta go out and buy the tires, they've gotta go out and buy the radio.
WALTERS (over TV): The government claims that Microsoft is trying to use its overwhelming dominance in computer operating systems to compete unfairly in the browser market.
The Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice believes that no consumer should be denied the browser of its choice.
ROBERTA: Yes! JAMES: That was heartening, by then it was too late, and didn't matter that much.
We weren't gonna profit from it.
JIM: We're not gonna make any sales before Christmas.
I'm afraid this quarter's gonna line up with our projection.
MARC: An $80 million loss.
JIM: In all likelihood, closer to 90 million.
The analysts are already snuffling for it like pigs for truffles.
JAMES: We scrambled as best we could, finding markets for what we had and building new products for what we didn't have.
I just think we had a whole new world we had to figure out.
JIM: Marc, we're gonna have to lay off some folks in the New Year.
I'll work with HR, make sure they have the best terms and packages.
You'll have to come up with your list.
That's very common in the tech industry, and it's very unpleasant.
It was unpleasant for me, you hate to do that.
JIM: We haven't had to do this before, but I can tell you it is always painful.
TARA: It was really tough.
I cried so hard, I left work and I went back to my apartment and hid, and I was just blubbering.
I just felt awful.
I mean, when you're so emotionally tied up with an experience and with a community, even if it's a work community.
That was just devastating for me and for a lot of us.
BRIAN: You look at the graphic for the word "Pixelon" and the "X" is a cross.
So Michael, purported to be a religious man, I believe there were even prayer meetings in his office from time to time.
"We have only five loaves and two fish," the disciples replied.
"Bring them to me," Jesus said.
And he directed the people to sit in the grass.
EMPLOYEE: I thought you were Jewish.
WOMAN: I am, but I didn't get the sense this was optional.
GARY: It's odd when you're in a circumstance like that because you sorta take your cues about what everybody else is doing.
And if everybody else takes the same cue, everybody else behaves the same way.
MICHAEL: My grandmother, bless her soul, was a woman who had the great gift of making all of her grandchildren, and there were 8 of us, feel as if we were each her favorite.
As I look out on y'all here, I can honestly say that I understand my grandmother.
I love each and every one of you equally.
Please join hands in prayer.
Lord, we ask your blessing as we walk the righteous path towards towards iBash, serving your mission.
A mission that will nourish the multitudes and provide abundance beyond our wildest imagining.
For this, and all things, we thank you.
Amen.
GROUP: Amen.
Nearer, my God to thee GARY: It was the dot-com era.
Everybody there thought that they were on the precipice of great wealth.
It's odd what that does to people, it did it to me.
Though it be a cross that raiseth me STEPHAN: It's the IPO.
KRIZELMAN: We're super excited, there's no question.
We don't know what it means to be public, we don't know what it means to run a publicly held company but we understand this is some rite of passage we're about to go through.
STEPHAN: I basically had a sleepless night.
KRIZELMAN: You look like a hundred bucks.
STEPHAN: Don't worry, Bear Stearns will price me at a tenth of that.
The price that had been left, that everybody had heard of was $8 a share, which was what Bear Stearns had floated to them.
And Egan got on the phone with the chairman and convinced them at some point to at least budge by a dollar, so we got from 8 bucks back to 9 bucks.
That's the good news, we're going public.
The mechanics for how an IPO actually happen are sort of cloaked in mystery.
But because of that, sometimes they don't always go so smoothly, and ours was no different.
You know, I woke up this morning and I realized that today is Friday the 13th.
STEPHAN: Why did you tell me that? KRIZELMAN: Cause it's the date.
STEPHAN: Of course it is.
I really wish I didn't know that.
KRIZELMAN: We're so screwed.
STEPHAN: This is the first holding pen, where they're holding us until our whole team is there.
We don't know what's going on, we're just waiting there.
And waiting.
(door opens) Are we going to price? Is this thing going through or what? BANKER: Yes, yep we are.
Oh, and by the way, word is it's gonna open between $20 and $30.
STEPHAN: $20? We weren't so focused on the fact that we had locked in at nine, we were so incredibly excited that the demand was so high that they're saying it's going to open around 20 bucks a share.
They take us down the hallway, take us to this little bullpen area, where there's a huge trading floor, where there's a bunch of senior traders sitting around their monitors.
Everyone in the room all looked in our direction at Todd and I.
And I don't know what to expect.
I've never seen this before, I've never watched a movie about this before.
I had no concept.
KRIZELMAN: Ace Greenberg who's the CEO and sort of a famous CEO of Bear Stearns, and he's doing card tricks.
That's the chairman.
He does this for every sort of every exec team as they're they're about to go public.
- Gentlemen.
- Boys.
BANKER: So, the deal's not going to open at $20.
It may hit $60! - STEPHAN: What the (bleep)? - KRIZELMAN: Are you kidding me? STEPHAN: I mean, at this point it seems surreal, like what is going on? When are you guys going to tell us, like, it's a big joke, or the thing's collapsing and it's not happening? That was the last update we got.
ACE: Hey.
Ace Greenberg.
- KRIZELMAN: Todd Krizelman.
- ACE: Good to meet you.
You too, son.
So, you're the guys making all this fuss, huh? - KRIZELMAN: I guess so.
- STEPHAN: Yes.
(laughter) ACE: Well, CNBC just picked up on the discussion, so fasten your seat belts.
EGAN: Okay, here we go.
ED: You guys ready for your lives to change forever? - KRIZELMAN: Yes.
- STEPHAN: Yes.
(laughter) PIT BOSS: Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five STEPHAN: Four, three (heart beating) PIT BOSS: 87! - BOTH: 87! - (cheering) $87! $87! - STEPHAN: Two seconds later.
- PIT BOSS: 97! STEPHAN: I mean, I was I think there was like a ring in my ears.
(ringing) It was in every way life-altering, in one fell swoop it completely validated everything Todd and I had been telling everyone about this thing called the Internet.
It was euphoric.
(cheers) KRIZELMAN: We're on CNN right now! REPORTER: Your stock just made the highest first day gain in stock market history! What does it feel like to be $97 Million Men? That money that'll make you scream and shout STEPHAN: I couldn't believe what, what was happening.
I'm euphoric.
KRIZELMAN: Euphoria.
Get that money You know you like it baby Give it to me Money, get that money Pop my collar Hop in my "rarri" I can feel the fire Yeah, it's burning Got them dollars I know they see me all the ladies holler If you only knew What it feels like to be ballin Oh This how we do Brand new shoes, yeah I'm lookin real clean You know we, get that money It'll make you scream and shout Get that money Yeah, that's what it's all about Get that money Give it to me Money Get that money Say, "Get that money" Get that money Get that money Get that money Say, "Make that money" Make that money Make that money Make that money Get that money EGAN: Enjoy it, boys.
We're a billion-dollar company.
For now.
KRIZELMAN: And our initial reaction in the first few minutes, and hours even, was euphoria.
But pretty quickly it was anger.
IZZY: They get a ton of money, but everyone else, these other people who came onto the scene like three months ago, who didn't even create anything, get so much more.
KRIZELMAN: You know, when a deal goes from $9 to $87, that means the company just left a lot of money on the table.
It's totally not fair, but once you agree to an offering price, no matter what, that's all you get.
KRIZELMAN: And that was obvious pretty quickly.
(music plays through credits)
Did they just threaten us? Maybe that's a good thing.
Maybe they just broke the law.
MARC: AOL's big deal with Microsoft didn't miraculously lift their stock price and now they're crawling back to us.
Let them find another lifeline.
WISKOWSKI: You can stop selling, we're in.
- MICHAEL: All right.
- We'll be in touch.
GOODIN: This guy who has been calling himself Michael Fenne is really David Kim Stanley, fugitive of the law.
CUBAN: Why did Advance Equities give Pixelon $10 million-plus? Because they wanted to take Pixelon public and pump it and dump it on unsuspecting shareholders and make a lot more money.
STEPHAN: We're onto something here, guys, I can feel it.
Mike, Ed, I think you guys feel it.
We're connecting people to each other.
It's kinda powerful.
We're actually not based here.
Todd and I, we started a little company based out of New York.
- PATTY: Hmm.
- STEPHAN: It's like an online community.
It's called TheGlobe.
com.
PATTY: TheGlobe.
com that just got a $20 million in investments? STEPHAN: You wanna what an IPO feels like? It feels like you're about to die.
(traffic) (heartbeat) MAN: Jump already! STEPHAN: You're standing at heaven's gate, your whole life is flashing before your eyes, and there's a judgment coming.
DARRIN: Hey! Hey, hey, hey, hey, stop! Stop! Um, look, uh, before you make a decision that you cannot take back, I need you to listen to me.
I know it doesn't feel like it right now, but You.
Matter.
Why don't you just come on down, huh? I'll make you a nice chamomile tea, and we can chat this thing right on out, that sound good? KRIZELMAN: It's a metaphor.
DARRIN: For real? KRIZELMAN: We're in a metaphor here.
- STEPHAN: C'mon, man! - DARRIN: You know, how about this! Next time we're in metaphor, you let me know, okay? So I'm not out here having a friggin' heart attack?! REPORTER (over TV): If you thought the Internet bubble was about to burst, think again.
While the Nasdaq, points were up more than 70 points, a record high.
Internet darling, Yahoo is closing in on a gain of 2,000%.
TARA: I think Wall Street built and ruined the web.
DAN: So there was just the rush, the machine, that was investors getting IPOs, getting the pop and getting out.
We we're always told, "you want the long-term investor," well, long-term meant maybe 18 hours.
Felt like a money-making scheme for everybody involved.
REPORTER (over TV): The usual roles for valuing a stock such as revenues and earnings no longer apply.
GOODIN: Suddenly, some of the major requirements that had existed in the past for for being able to do an IPO just went away.
Nobody knew really how to measure this type of stuff.
REPORTER (over TV): eToys says heavy advertising is necessary to establish a brand name.
MAN: The most important thing for these companies to do right now is to establish their market position, not to be profitable.
CUBAN: Companies with only a website were going public and making tens of millions of dollars, or hundreds of millions or billions of dollars on paper.
DAN: All of a sudden you were printing millionaires out of nowhere, there was this paper that suddenly you could sell because these companies were going public.
REPORTER: GeoCities went public last August was up about 340%.
ED: Valuation prior to let's call this the Internet boom, wouldn't have mattered.
But because the media paid such attention to the initial public offerings at the time that if you weren't worth a billion dollars and your competitor was, it was almost like this stain on your company.
The myth-making was part of the product making.
MICHAEL: (clears throat) Here you go.
Mmm.
(laughing) SHEILA: Have a wonderful, positive day.
(kiss) MICHAEL: You know what I see in every cubicle here? A millionaire! That means you.
And you.
And you.
And, hey, don't think I forgot about your niece, you have her come see me, we'll fix her up with a job.
Hey, buddy.
Highlights bring out your eyes.
Never discount the value of a makeover.
Hey, people! Oh, hey, I'm glad you're here, we need to talk about something.
MICHAEL: Hey, you are on it.
Isn't he on it? Hey, you all are on it.
The energy in here is electric, I can feel it coursing through each and every one of you.
I know you feel it too, because you all are making history in here.
This is the biggest, star-studded musical event ever, okay? A little bit country, a lot rock and roll, and everything in between.
So keep moving forward and get it done.
Get.
It.
Done.
Okay? GARY: It's amazing what can happen once money arrives.
And the idea was to have this big crazy party with all this you know, high-name talent I think to you know to market the company, to be able to say hey, look, look at what we're doing.
MICHAEL: Remember, we're announcing to the world, Pixelon is number one in Internet broadcasting.
"Coming to you live, full motion, full screen, full speed.
Pitch-perfect.
" Write that down.
Pitch-perfect.
Oh, hey, that ain't nothing compared to the vision I had last night.
The heavens suddenly parted and what was previously dark was suddenly illuminated and clear, so very, very clear.
The writing, right in front of my eyes, big gold letters: iBash.
We eventually settled on iBash, which was a suggestion that I had made so I'm actually the person who named iBash.
SOCOLOF: iBash.
It's not bad, man.
MICHAEL: It's absolutely good.
Right? SOCOLOF: Oh, hey, we gotta' talk budget.
MICHAEL: Hey, no limited thinking.
I made you a promise whatever you need, you'd have.
iBash was going to be a way that Pixelon could immediately hit the market with a huge amount of content.
MICHAEL: Hey, we gotta get the Who.
You know what I mean? With Internet Explorer 3.
0, we finally had something on Netscape.
We finally had something that we were frankly proud of.
Uh, up to that point in time the browsers that we shipped were kind of a joke.
And it was the first one in which we actually won competitive reviews.
JOY: That really was their first browser where they took, I don't know exactly what the numbers were, but they started to take a big chunk of our market share.
They bundled Internet Explorer into their operating system with Windows 95 or somewhere in there for free in their operating system which was 90% of the market.
That was a devastating blow.
MARC: How long? JIM: Three, four quarters before it blows up our bottom line.
CLARK: It's the damn definition of predatory pricing! Which last time I checked, was anti-trust level illegal.
Am I wrong? There's definitely an argument to be made, but I think CLARK: Nobody can compete against free.
MARC: Plus it's still an inferior piece of coding.
JIM: Roberta, what do you got for us? Our focus needs to be on the consent decree Microsoft signed with the government.
It forbids the company from using its operating system and software dominance to squash competition.
Which is exactly what they're doing.
- JIM: Is that right? - MARC: Doesn't surprise me.
CLARK: Okay, Microsoft is evil.
Got it.
Did you all hear the part where Jim says we have three or four quarters before we're dead? JIM: Are you sure you guys don't want to sit down? CLARK: We gotta staunch the bleeding before everyone sees how badly we've been hit.
We get out of the water where the shark has the advantage and back in the forest where the bear has the advantage.
MARC: Sharks and bears, oh my.
I'm saying we make have to build something that is undeniable, so that companies and consumers have no choice but to come back to us.
E-commerce, business-to-business.
What's gonna' stop Microsoft from ripping that out from under us as well? MARC: Oh, I don't know.
Laws? ROBERTA: Let me handle that.
We can't force the DOJ to prosecute, but we can give them all the ammunition they'll need.
JIM: All right.
Thanks, Roberta.
Look, we're small and agile, and they need to keep feeding the Window's beast.
So why don't just keep our heads down, focus on what we can control? Got it? (whistling) GROUP: Hello.
Blow us a kiss up here.
Nice spoon.
SPOKESPERSON: TheGlobe.
com.
Join a club, telekinetics.
GROUP: Hey, baby! Gettin' lonely up here.
Hey, hey, hey.
(crash) GIRL: Who wants buffalo wings? SPOKESPERSON: From telekinetics to football fanatics, you'll find thousands of clubs to choose from: GROUP: TheGlobe.
com.
SPOKESPERSON: Build a world around you.
The Internet market was simply heating up more and more.
GeoCities had just filed to go public.
eBay and Yahoo and Netscape, they were just really rocketing and we realized, dammit, even with Mike's 20 million, we can't stay private.
We're gonna actually have to go public.
We had this huge amount of traffic, but we did not have that paired with a working business model.
We had to support what used to be tens of thousands of paying members and now millions of free members and so we had to pay for more servers, server farms, more electricity, and more employees and more programmers.
Millions of dollars were rapidly vanishing.
STEPHAN: These IPOs are becoming this rite of passage that legitimizes these companies, that distinguishes the interesting Internet companies from the best Internet companies.
We met with all the major banks.
But there were two banks in particular that were hungry for this and they hadn't had yet a breakout IPO in the tech sector.
I guess we made the fateful decision of going with the Bear Stearns.
So We'd seen Lycos become a multi-hundred-million-dollar company.
We'd seen Excite become a multi-hundred-million-dollar company.
We'd seen Netscape become a multi-hundred-million, or billion-dollar company.
And these other startups had similar audience sizes to us and were maybe building technologies that were comparable.
No, if you think about Listen.
- A little too much like Geocities - Nevermind Geocities STEPHAN: And so, those comparables of traffic size and audience started to equate, get that higher valuation.
KRIZELMAN: Aren't those numbers a little high? STEPHAN: Maybe not high enough? So before we went on the road show, uh, the bankers and Mike and Ed wanted us to have a particular professional look.
KRIZELMAN: We did not know how to pitch.
We did not know how to dress.
We did not know any part of the process really.
STEPHAN: They asked us to also get a coach who could teach us how to present properly and the physicality of it, because Todd and I each had these little weird idiosyncratic behaviors that needed to be addressed.
KRIZELMAN: Think of online community like your offline community.
STEPHAN: Except much bigger.
In the next few years there's going to be 100 million people on the Internet.
COACH: Do you have to take a piss? STEPHAN: Uh, no.
KRIZELMAN: We didn't understand the communication style, and this was incredibly frustrating to Steph.
COACH: Are you defending the goal on a free kick? STEPHAN: No.
Then why are you standing there with your hands in front of your balls? - (chuckles) - COACH: Huh? Now we're totally vulnerable if they do kick a soccer ball at us.
COACH: Something you want to share with the class? - STEPHAN: No.
Yeah.
- KRIZELMAN: We're good.
STEPHAN: Todd and I had always been dressing totally casually.
The bankers and Mike and Ed were all in agreement: this is a traditional road show, we need to look like we're professionals and we need to look as old as we can look.
Oh, yeah, oh, yeah Put 'em up like you don't care Oh, yeah, oh, yeah Put 'em up like you don't care Shake your derrier, shake your derrier, shake it Shake your derrier, shake your derrier, shake it Shake your derrier, shake your derrier, shake it Shake your derrier, shake your derrier, shake it Shake your derrier just like that (pager beeping) KRIZELMAN: Oh, crap.
Servers are down.
Uh, I'm sorry, I gotta go.
STEPHAN: I'll go.
KRIZELMAN: No, no, you're definitely better dealing with the grownups.
- STEPHAN: Am not.
- KRIZELMAN: Nice try.
How great will it be when we can just get back to running our company? KRIZELMAN: With 30 million more in capital to play with.
STEPHAN: This is actually happening, isn't it? KRIZELMAN: This is actually happening! ROBERTA: We'd been complaining to the DOJ, loudly, and getting nowhere; but the bundling gave us our strongest argument for antitrust.
We wrote a 220 page white paper that compiled all Microsoft's crimes and misdemeanors.
GATES (over TV): The reality of the high-technology industry.
ROBERTA: And read like a pot boiler.
GATES (over TV): Good for consumers.
JIM: Oh, hey Roberta.
Yeah, there was talk of publishing it as a book, court of public opinion.
The title wasn't exactly sexy.
Jim Barksdale thought that releasing the white paper to the public would make the company look weak.
The main thing about a smoking gun is it means someone's been shot.
So it was decided that the white paper would have an audience of one.
The DOJ said that if we presented "credible evidence", they'd jump on it like a dog on a bone.
GATES (over TV): All of Microsoft's actions have been completely legal.
Of course the entire DOJ team investigating at the time consisted of two lawyers in a San Francisco field office.
So things moved a hell of a lot slower than we'd hoped.
BRIAN: From what I saw Pixelon's goal was to You have to understand, it was before YouTube, so there wasn't any idea of an online video portal, and I think that's what Pixelon was really going for, was to be able to have this destination where you could go watch a ton of video.
The idea was to get as much content populated on the site as possible.
BARRY: Okay, so you switch here, change input, it gets run through the intake encoder.
- WOMAN: Okay.
- BARRY: Then I edit output and upload to the server.
- And now it's on our website.
- WOMAN: Okay.
BRIAN: The technology that we were utilizing at Pixelon was definitely new and it was definitely interesting and there wasn't a lot like it out there.
Full screen, TV style video on the Internet.
There just weren't a lot of people that were doing that kind of thing.
BARRY: So he told you about the box? WOMAN: Yeah, what's up with that? He said he spoke with the CIA, that he's got it booby trapped? BARRY: Yeah, I know.
It's weird.
Just don't look, don't touch, don't ask.
WOMAN: Okay.
GARY: That black rack mounted box was off limits for anybody to open.
It was explained to us that each of them had been booby trapped to prevent reverse engineers from opening it up and stealing the technology out from under us.
So the booby trap was a acid pill, it was explained to us that as soon as the case was open, an acid pill would break, spilling acid into the computer and destroying the internal components of it.
I'm not really sure if the protection inside there was supposed to harm the individual going in there or destroy the technology.
My sense of things was it was supposed to destroy the technology.
That rumor came down from the top.
- BARRY: So, I was thinking - MICHAEL: Uh-huh.
BARRY: With our broadcasting the Iowa Straw Poll next week.
Hey, did I tell you that my good friend Ronnie Reagan called to congratulate me on our deal? Yeah, just yesterday.
He and Nancy are very excited about what Pixelon's doing do for the GOP, bringing 'em into the Internet age.
BARRY: Exactly, it's our biggest event so far, so I was thinking, we should do a test run.
MICHAEL: Why would I do that? BARRY: Well, to find out if there are any kinks, and if there are, iron them out.
MICHAEL: You think there are kinks? BARRY: No, no, no, I'm not saying there are any kinks.
I just MICHAEL: I'm just messing with you, Barry.
I appreciate your diligence, but this is way above your pay grade.
Engineering and high-tech stuff's best left to me and my programmer.
Okay? Barry, you look exhausted.
Very pale.
Are you tired? BARRY: Yeah, I've been working 18-hour shifts.
MICHAEL: Okay.
Here's what I want you to do.
I want you to go home, take the rest of the day off, just get some sleep, okay? BARRY: Thanks.
But if you do a test run, if I could be there.
MICHAEL: "Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise; and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.
" Proverbs 17:28.
The Lord fuels us to do his work, but the body is weak.
(door closes) MARC: Where the hell is the DOJ? JIM: Gathering their evidence.
The wheels of justice don't turn on Netscape time.
MARC: How much more credible does it have to get? JIM: We can't mistake a clear view for a short distance.
MARC: Things Marc Andreessen doesn't like: nostalgia, parties and physical displays of just touching.
Not necessarily in that order.
I never took you for someone whose plan for the future relies on white knights.
Yeah, well screw you and the patience you're trying to teach me.
JIM: My pleasure.
You know, I learned a while ago that if you make your mission real clear and a lot of smart people work on it, you'll figure it out.
We got a simple mission here and you know it's never really changed.
Keep the Internet open.
Keep creating products that are important and relevant.
Make a whole lot of people's lives a whole lot better, something we call changing the world.
TEAM: Yeah! So your job is to keep running as fast as you can toward that cliff.
My job is to keep moving the cliff.
STEPHAN: We were ready to go on the actual road show.
We wanted to go as fast as we could because our competitors, they, they, you know, GeoCities, they had already gone public.
They were safely on the other side, flush with cash, and we were sitting here hurrying up trying to see if we could make it before this IPO window closed.
To refresh your memory, a road show's where you go and whore yourself out to all the major institutional investors and big money managers in the country to drum up interest in your IPO.
You get five minutes to tell These stodgy, grey-haired guys what the Internet is, and why they need to own a piece of your company.
STEPHAN: All in 10 luxurious, fun-filled days.
Yay.
Remember the Netscape road show? JIM: Goodness.
Thank you for having us and thank you for inviting the entire world.
(laughter) KRIZELMAN: Yeah, ours wasn't quite like that.
STEPHAN: So what do you guys think? KRIZELMAN: Mm.
Any questions? We started on our road show, which is expensive and time consuming.
And in that time the NASDAQ really falls apart.
REPORTER (over TV): Wall Street is growing tired with the Internet itself.
The once red hot initial public offering market has cooled recently.
Things were a bit in a flux, investors were definitely a little cautious here.
Nearly 80 new issues have been yanked so far this year.
STEPHAN: I mean, it was unbelievable.
And you couldn't script this thing.
We just filed to go public and you're telling us the market just died? STEPHAN: Thank God only five more cities.
KRIZELMAN: Six.
Did that guy really say, "Well I guess all you young people will have to go back to working for a living now?" At least he didn't keep leaving the room to check his stocks.
You know, according to the bottle, you're actually supposed to wash cold medicine down with gin, not vodka.
STEPHAN: It's soothing.
170 other companies have already pulled their IPOs.
KRIZELMAN: 174.
STEPHAN: Everyone's asking, why are we out here? KRIZELMAN: We're either braver or dumber.
And more in need of money.
STEPHAN: Oh, thank you for driving that point home, that would have been totally lost on me.
Do you want to go into how if this doesn't happen we'll have to fire Why don't you tell me how many people, since you always go into it? KRIZELMAN: Always? You want to get into always now? All right, one more.
SEAN: Why don't you work? This sucks! Come on, why don't you work? No, no, no, no! No! No! No! CODER: Oh, suck it, ah! SEAN: No! TARA: Damn it, Sean! - SEAN: What? - TARA: "What?" SEAN: I think I broke it.
TARA: Yep, we're gonna have to change the installer code.
Three engineers, 12 hour days, add on 3 more days, guys.
- SEAN: I'm sorry.
- CODER: No, not sorry.
Booze.
TARA: Tequila, please.
Top shelf, none of that no label crap.
Bribery booze was a glorious tradition where every time the build team got completely hammered by something the engineers did, um, usually, inadvertently, they would bring us some booze.
And by version 4 of the Navigator, actually we were kinda calculating how successful the development of the Navigator was going by how much booze the build team had.
We'd drink it all too! It was like, oh, God, it's 10:00 at night, who wants a shot, right? Totally unprofessional, but it was awesome.
Who wants a shot? (loud crash) Okay.
SEAN: Ah, it's hideous.
TARA: You know, Microsoft was in town, they had this big like cardboard or plastic board you know "e" logo.
And, yeah, they bring it over and they plant it right in front of Netscape headquarters.
TECH: Unbelievable.
TARA: "It's just not fair.
Good people should'nt have to feel bad.
The IE team.
" SEAN: That's their idea of funny, what the hell does it even mean? CODER: They talk trash as lame as they write code.
ROSANNE: I do remember that event.
(laughs) You know, I just thought it was a desperate act.
I remember thinking that it made them look dumb.
You know, it's sort of like, when you're a big giant and you have to go stomp on the smaller competitor? You give the smaller competitor credibility.
TARA: The word spread quickly and somebody got the brilliant idea, like, oh, well, we've got Mozilla.
TODD: Mozilla, was this dinosaur like creature, which was our mascot for our company and our browser.
And so we put that on top of their brand and put a market share number up there and said, "We're still dominant.
" TEAM: Yeah, whoo! I can't believe they gave us this opportunity to have this totally symbolic, Mozilla's totally stomping on Internet Explorer and it was really glorious.
(Andreessen laughing) CUBAN: What Pixelon said was that they had a super whizzbang codec that blew away everybody else.
And that was their big lie.
GARY: Pixelon had never streamed anything live at this point.
We did stream the Iowa Straw Pole.
TEAM: Yeah! (clapping) (cheering) GARY: When we streamed the Iowa Straw Pole that was the first time it was exposed that Pixelon had no capability of doing anything live.
We tapped into I think it was Iowa Public Television and we were actually receiving that signal via satellite from the satellite truck that we'd just paid 100 grand for encoding it, but not with Pixelon's technology.
It wasn't possible.
BRIAN: The claim was that the technology was proprietary, it was all built in house from the ground up by Pixelon.
GOODIN: Searches that I did with the U.
S.
Patent office didn't turn up a single registered patent.
GARY: People did see it on the Internet.
They didn't see it full-screen, full motion.
MICHAEL: Plenty more, this is just for the toast.
(toasting and cheering) GARY: The technology that's supposed to be delivering this over the Internet is the thing that we're supposed to be delivering.
When it came time for us to actually demonstrate that, we failed.
Not only did we fail, we didn't even try.
We used, um Windows Media Encoder and the Windows Media Player to actually facilitate that.
STEPHAN: Bear Stearns told us all the institutions are spooked.
Everyone was saying it looks like we're entering a recessionary period.
If we couldn't go public, it was game over for going public.
HIPSTER: Hey, can I still get into the IPO? Is it too late for friends and family? STEPHAN: You are neither.
You know, I think some degree of panic was setting in.
You want to be confident and project how great things are going, right? 'Cause all the other guys are living it up and their careers are going great and the money's rolling in.
And meanwhile in the back of your mind you've got this problem that your company might just die.
JENN: What? What? (laughs) What? What? STEPHAN: I could take you through the whole thing, but suffice it to say: I'd never met anyone like Jenn before.
KRIZELMAN: Guten morgen! STEPHAN: I know what I'm smiling about.
The question is, what are you smiling about? KRIZELMAN: We got the call! Bear Stearns is getting inbound calls from all the companies we met with, they're interested.
STEPHAN: IPO, baby.
I-P-O! Whoo! - Three days, we only have until? - KRIZELMAN: Friday.
(phone rings) Hello, it's Jerry from Bear Stearns.
Jerry, I'm here with Steph right now, we are so excited.
Bear Stearns called us up and said, listen the markets very turbulent, we strongly recommend you just get out into the public, that's what's most important.
Take what you can and just go and do it.
STEPHAN: Todd and I, being as inexperienced as we were, we didn't know how hard we could push back.
If we're getting all this unprecedented demand that Bear Stearns was telling about, why can't we move the price? Yesterday you told us we have 45 million shares of demand for our three-million share offering.
BANKER: And two days ago we couldn't sell a single share.
EGAN: C'mon, we gotta get it higher than $8.
BANKER: Pricing is a delicate balance.
Okay, you've got to leave enough meat on the bone so people will want to keep coming back and feeding.
KRIZELMAN: Nearly twelve times demand's "not a little meat.
" ED: There has to be a middle ground.
(Izzy sneezing) - Gesundheit.
- KRIZELMAN: Hey, are you lost? - What's your name? - IZZY: I'm Izzy Young.
BANKER: Okay, well, Izzy Young, you c IZZY: And I'm pretty good at math, so don't worry, I can make this simple for you.
When a company is trading, the price of its stock is made by something called supply and demand.
But in an IPO, the bankers already figured that out and they come up with an offering price.
It's kind of hard to tell who makes the most money in IPOs, so let's see the winnings if they price it at $8 and it sells at $8.
This bigger pile is for our guys and this smaller pile's for the old dudes.
But don't feel too bad for the bankers.
Grape jelly, ugh.
Okay, now let's see what happens when the stock is underpriced.
The stock shoots up like a rocket on the first day of trading, blows up 100%! Bankers, it turns out, are really good to their BFFs and big clients, Friends of Finance, they get onto IPOs before anyone else! Okay, now let's see what happens when the price for all this triples! The bank's big clients can sells the stock right away for huge profits.
And pass some of that back to their bankers in commissions and more business.
So yeah, they get a ton of money, but everyone else, these other people who came onto the scene like three months ago who didn't even create anything, get so much more.
It's totally not fair, but once you agree to an offering price, no matter what, that's all you get.
And that is how the game is played.
When I grow up, I want to be an investment banker.
BARRY: So, the thing is, I was looking at our encoded video for the Straw Poll and MICHAEL: And? BARRY: It's Windows Media Player.
A doctored version, but still.
Lesser minds cast aspersions.
That's what lesser minds do.
Wrought by jealousy no doubt.
Think, for a minute just how crazy you sound right now.
And, if, if you admit that you made a mistake now, I'll forgive you.
There will be beneficence.
BARRY: There's no mistake.
The Microsoft branding was scrubbed using a customization feature that's actually in Windows Media Player.
MICHAEL: That's quite a story.
And here I thought we'd come to an understanding the other day, about your limitations.
BARRY: Okay, well you know what? Despite my limitations, I was able to see that our whole company is built around modifying an existing program from the biggest company in the world! It's completely illegal and just wrong.
You know, I was genuinely excited about being a part this, something completely new, but nothing here makes sense anymore.
Nothing.
MICHAEL: You know the thing about a germ, Barry? It's nothing.
A small thing really.
Can't even see it with the naked eye.
You can wipe it away with your sleeve and not even know it.
But if you don't wipe it out, it spreads.
It divides.
And soon it infects not only one, but many.
It becomes like water turned into blood, fiery hail, it becomes the pestilence.
For the greater good of all, I can't let that happen.
That's sad.
- BARRY: I'm sorry, what are you - MICHAEL: You're a germ.
You are a germ, Barry.
Now, get out! Get out of my office! Get out of my company! You hear what I say? You're fired! I swear to God, get your ass out of here! Good evening, beautiful.
SHEILIA: Well, good evening.
MICHAEL: I think it's time for an upgrade.
What do you say we trade this thing in for a Rolls? SHEILA: A Rolls Royce? MICHAEL: Now a lot of folks like the silver, but they do make a Peacock Blue that's quite fetching.
Think on it.
SHEILA: Oh, my gosh.
Okay.
You must have had a good day at work.
MICHAEL: Things at work just keeps getting better and better.
SHEILA: Really? MICHAEL: Always.
(car starts) We went We made a trip to Washington and met with the Department of Justice.
And kicked off the anti, the antitrust law suit.
ROBERTA: Finally the DOJ took on the contempt case and had it put before a District Court Judge.
It was out of our hands at that point.
All we could do was keep waiting.
Until REPORTER (over TV): Surprising everyone, federal judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered Microsoft to cease and desist its practice of forcing PC makers to carry its Internet Explorer browser.
GATES (over TV): What the government's saying is that we shouldn't put as many features into our products.
It's like telling someone that can't buy a car, they've gotta go buy the motor, they've gotta go out and buy the tires, they've gotta go out and buy the radio.
WALTERS (over TV): The government claims that Microsoft is trying to use its overwhelming dominance in computer operating systems to compete unfairly in the browser market.
The Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice believes that no consumer should be denied the browser of its choice.
ROBERTA: Yes! JAMES: That was heartening, by then it was too late, and didn't matter that much.
We weren't gonna profit from it.
JIM: We're not gonna make any sales before Christmas.
I'm afraid this quarter's gonna line up with our projection.
MARC: An $80 million loss.
JIM: In all likelihood, closer to 90 million.
The analysts are already snuffling for it like pigs for truffles.
JAMES: We scrambled as best we could, finding markets for what we had and building new products for what we didn't have.
I just think we had a whole new world we had to figure out.
JIM: Marc, we're gonna have to lay off some folks in the New Year.
I'll work with HR, make sure they have the best terms and packages.
You'll have to come up with your list.
That's very common in the tech industry, and it's very unpleasant.
It was unpleasant for me, you hate to do that.
JIM: We haven't had to do this before, but I can tell you it is always painful.
TARA: It was really tough.
I cried so hard, I left work and I went back to my apartment and hid, and I was just blubbering.
I just felt awful.
I mean, when you're so emotionally tied up with an experience and with a community, even if it's a work community.
That was just devastating for me and for a lot of us.
BRIAN: You look at the graphic for the word "Pixelon" and the "X" is a cross.
So Michael, purported to be a religious man, I believe there were even prayer meetings in his office from time to time.
"We have only five loaves and two fish," the disciples replied.
"Bring them to me," Jesus said.
And he directed the people to sit in the grass.
EMPLOYEE: I thought you were Jewish.
WOMAN: I am, but I didn't get the sense this was optional.
GARY: It's odd when you're in a circumstance like that because you sorta take your cues about what everybody else is doing.
And if everybody else takes the same cue, everybody else behaves the same way.
MICHAEL: My grandmother, bless her soul, was a woman who had the great gift of making all of her grandchildren, and there were 8 of us, feel as if we were each her favorite.
As I look out on y'all here, I can honestly say that I understand my grandmother.
I love each and every one of you equally.
Please join hands in prayer.
Lord, we ask your blessing as we walk the righteous path towards towards iBash, serving your mission.
A mission that will nourish the multitudes and provide abundance beyond our wildest imagining.
For this, and all things, we thank you.
Amen.
GROUP: Amen.
Nearer, my God to thee GARY: It was the dot-com era.
Everybody there thought that they were on the precipice of great wealth.
It's odd what that does to people, it did it to me.
Though it be a cross that raiseth me STEPHAN: It's the IPO.
KRIZELMAN: We're super excited, there's no question.
We don't know what it means to be public, we don't know what it means to run a publicly held company but we understand this is some rite of passage we're about to go through.
STEPHAN: I basically had a sleepless night.
KRIZELMAN: You look like a hundred bucks.
STEPHAN: Don't worry, Bear Stearns will price me at a tenth of that.
The price that had been left, that everybody had heard of was $8 a share, which was what Bear Stearns had floated to them.
And Egan got on the phone with the chairman and convinced them at some point to at least budge by a dollar, so we got from 8 bucks back to 9 bucks.
That's the good news, we're going public.
The mechanics for how an IPO actually happen are sort of cloaked in mystery.
But because of that, sometimes they don't always go so smoothly, and ours was no different.
You know, I woke up this morning and I realized that today is Friday the 13th.
STEPHAN: Why did you tell me that? KRIZELMAN: Cause it's the date.
STEPHAN: Of course it is.
I really wish I didn't know that.
KRIZELMAN: We're so screwed.
STEPHAN: This is the first holding pen, where they're holding us until our whole team is there.
We don't know what's going on, we're just waiting there.
And waiting.
(door opens) Are we going to price? Is this thing going through or what? BANKER: Yes, yep we are.
Oh, and by the way, word is it's gonna open between $20 and $30.
STEPHAN: $20? We weren't so focused on the fact that we had locked in at nine, we were so incredibly excited that the demand was so high that they're saying it's going to open around 20 bucks a share.
They take us down the hallway, take us to this little bullpen area, where there's a huge trading floor, where there's a bunch of senior traders sitting around their monitors.
Everyone in the room all looked in our direction at Todd and I.
And I don't know what to expect.
I've never seen this before, I've never watched a movie about this before.
I had no concept.
KRIZELMAN: Ace Greenberg who's the CEO and sort of a famous CEO of Bear Stearns, and he's doing card tricks.
That's the chairman.
He does this for every sort of every exec team as they're they're about to go public.
- Gentlemen.
- Boys.
BANKER: So, the deal's not going to open at $20.
It may hit $60! - STEPHAN: What the (bleep)? - KRIZELMAN: Are you kidding me? STEPHAN: I mean, at this point it seems surreal, like what is going on? When are you guys going to tell us, like, it's a big joke, or the thing's collapsing and it's not happening? That was the last update we got.
ACE: Hey.
Ace Greenberg.
- KRIZELMAN: Todd Krizelman.
- ACE: Good to meet you.
You too, son.
So, you're the guys making all this fuss, huh? - KRIZELMAN: I guess so.
- STEPHAN: Yes.
(laughter) ACE: Well, CNBC just picked up on the discussion, so fasten your seat belts.
EGAN: Okay, here we go.
ED: You guys ready for your lives to change forever? - KRIZELMAN: Yes.
- STEPHAN: Yes.
(laughter) PIT BOSS: Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five STEPHAN: Four, three (heart beating) PIT BOSS: 87! - BOTH: 87! - (cheering) $87! $87! - STEPHAN: Two seconds later.
- PIT BOSS: 97! STEPHAN: I mean, I was I think there was like a ring in my ears.
(ringing) It was in every way life-altering, in one fell swoop it completely validated everything Todd and I had been telling everyone about this thing called the Internet.
It was euphoric.
(cheers) KRIZELMAN: We're on CNN right now! REPORTER: Your stock just made the highest first day gain in stock market history! What does it feel like to be $97 Million Men? That money that'll make you scream and shout STEPHAN: I couldn't believe what, what was happening.
I'm euphoric.
KRIZELMAN: Euphoria.
Get that money You know you like it baby Give it to me Money, get that money Pop my collar Hop in my "rarri" I can feel the fire Yeah, it's burning Got them dollars I know they see me all the ladies holler If you only knew What it feels like to be ballin Oh This how we do Brand new shoes, yeah I'm lookin real clean You know we, get that money It'll make you scream and shout Get that money Yeah, that's what it's all about Get that money Give it to me Money Get that money Say, "Get that money" Get that money Get that money Get that money Say, "Make that money" Make that money Make that money Make that money Get that money EGAN: Enjoy it, boys.
We're a billion-dollar company.
For now.
KRIZELMAN: And our initial reaction in the first few minutes, and hours even, was euphoria.
But pretty quickly it was anger.
IZZY: They get a ton of money, but everyone else, these other people who came onto the scene like three months ago, who didn't even create anything, get so much more.
KRIZELMAN: You know, when a deal goes from $9 to $87, that means the company just left a lot of money on the table.
It's totally not fair, but once you agree to an offering price, no matter what, that's all you get.
KRIZELMAN: And that was obvious pretty quickly.
(music plays through credits)