Tom Wolfe Still Making Sweeping, Mostly True GeneralizationsThe writer predicts “the end of capitalism,” and may be right; Ariana Huffington talks about her beef with Tim Russert; and a Manhattan lawyer does due diligence with the Other Side, all in our daily rundown of weird, wonderful finance, media, law and real-estate news.
party lines
Dot-com Kids Party Like It’s 1999One night in late October, hundreds of men and women packed into a posh New York club to imbibe and dance and celebrate the one-year anniversary of scrappy dot-com start-up. Drinks were tossed back freely, as they tend to be when they’re free, and young, hustling entrepreneurs handed out business cards to one another as finance dudes in striped shirts and blazers looked on. Everyone — a youngish crowd of friends, Internet people, and, natch, publicists — seemed rather content to hang out, get drunk, and, like, meet other interesting people. Ah, life in the bubble — another round of tequila shots, pronto!
Except, of course, that the bubble long ago burst. This is 2006, not 1999, and the dot-com in question — Thrillist.com, a daily product-listings newsletter for the post–frat boy set (think DailyCandy for dudes) — was doing things a little differently than its deep-pocketed Web 1.0 forebears.