|
Sunday, July 06, 2003
I've spent a fair amount of the July 4th holiday reading Stealing Time: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Collapse of AOL Time Warner, or, as the Powell's web site editorially has it listed, " . . . the Looting of AOL-Time Warner". Written by Alec Klein, the Washington Post reporter who brought some of AOL's more "creative" accounting practices to the notice of the Justice Department, the book is obviously a hasty re-assemblage of the original articles, and is thus sometimes a little hard to follow chronologically. And, focussing mostly on the personalities involved, it's definitely light on deep analysis.
But what a story! It's all there: the plucky upstart's rise, the presumptuous arrogance that leads to overreaching, and the precipitous fall. It's pretty obvious Klein doesn't like any of the AOL folks - he seems to go out of his way to present them in the worst possible light. Still, mostly he steps back and just shows you what they clearly did to themselves: the strong-arm negotiating, the long-term growth sacrificed for short-term gain, the evident presence of a lot of smoke and mirrors. There's more to be said about the subject, but this is surely an entertaining introduction.
posted by jeev |
12:37 PM |
 
|
|
