Broadbandits

June 15, 2003
The latest in an increasingly popular string of works analyzing another burst bubble, this book takes on the demise of the telecom broadband industry. The author, formerly a writer at Red Herring and now an editor at Forbes, focuses on the individuals and corporations involved in some of the most egregious hypes and heists of the telecom industry. The individuals profiled include Bernie Ebbers (WorldCom), Phil Anschutz (Qwest), Gary Winnick (Global Crossing), Jim Crowe (Level 3 Communications), Ken Rice (Enron), Alex Mandl (Teligent), John Doerr (Excite@Home), Teddy Forstmann (Forstmann, Little & Co.), Jack Grubman (Salomon Smith Barney), John Roth (Nortel), Gururaj Deshpande and Daniel Smith (Sycamore Networks), and Vinod Khosla (Cisco). This is a lively work, though edging toward overblown, which delights in dishing the dirt on some once high and mighty industry giants. By providing background and details, however, it helps the reader connect individuals with corporations and gives insight into the tangled web that has now almost completely unraveled. Purchase where there is interest.-Susan Hurst, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2003
Even as the conspicuous dot-com bubble burst in March 2000, an even larger bubble was still forming that would bring disaster to the telecommunications industry. The race to develop broadband fiber optic networks is a story of overcapacity and overproduction with an all-too-familiar theme of greed and deceit that has left companies in shambles, employees without jobs, and investors swindled while executives cashed out with millions. Malik, a former senior writer for "Red Herring "and "Forbes.com," reports on more than a dozen of these "broadbandits," such as Gary Winnick, cofounder of Global Crossing, who became a billionaire faster than anyone in U.S. history; Jack Grubman, telecom analyst at Solomon Smith Barney, who pocketed $100 million touting overpriced broadband stocks; and Bernie Ebbers, chief executive of Worldcom, who went on an acquisition buying spree until the company's financial dirty tricks caught up with him. Losses in this sector have approached a trillion dollars, reputations have been ruined, and the economy is suffering as a result, but disaster does make for interesting copy. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)