Scott Banister, who was when I met him a 25-year-old Prodigy at Idealab! who sat on the eVoice board, must be proud that he bailed out when his fucked company was bought by Microsoft during the heyday of dot communism. Anwyay, they shut it down.
Listbot was actually bought by LinkExchange which was then bought by MSFT… Banister created Listbot in his dorm room at UofI. I didn’t realize he had left Idealab! He and Bill Gross were a match made in heaven — both of them dinosaurs of dot com with no inkling how to create, manage, and operate successful companies in a real economy. At least Scott has an excuse — he’s 26 now and has had no hard lessons in real economics, and his bank account has taught him that fly-by-nite internet companies are in fact a path to success.
Eventually he’ll figure it out that in the long run it matters if those companies are still around to pay their employees once he’s extracted his gold. Or maybe, even now, it doesn’t?
-Ian.