From Geek to Peak

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Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you know about the demise of Pets.com. Its downfall, and its sock puppet mascot, became a symbol for an entire era of business stupidity. Being someone who was actually working in the dot-com industry at the time, I thought it was pretty amusing, and never did I give a second thought to the people behind the Pets.com effort.

Have a read-through of this post by Julie Wainwright, former CEO of Pets.com. She’s now CEO of SmarterNow, and is confronting some of those old ghosts of Pets.com failure after an eight-year hiatus. Here’s a little piece:

First some background, I was the CEO of Pets.com. In case you haven’t heard of it, Pets.com and its mascot, the Sock Puppet, became the symbol for the dotcom bubble and its subsequent bust. Some have even charged me personally with bringing down the U.S. economy. Pets’ short period of success was fueled by positive press about the company and myself. Pets received even more press when it failed.

As the public CEO, I failed, and it was a very public failure. In fact, I was labeled one of the biggest failures ever.

Whatever you may think of Julie, her company, the dot-bomb era, whatever, please read this extremely courageous, transparent piece. It doesn’t matter if you plan on creating a world-spanning startup or a home-based consulting business. The mistakes she acknowledges are universal ones, and looking over the list, I acknowledge having made the same mistakes (boy, did I ever)

The only difference is scale, really. I’ve never had anyone laugh in my face because of my mistakes. Doesn’t mean that I don’t punish myself when I see my own face reflected back to me in the mirror.

Read the Story Here