Dot-com boom and bust: The movie Video

Dot-com boom and bust: The movie Video Transcript

[ Music ] ^M00:00:02

>> The real question is where will these guys be six months from now.

>> We'll be right here.

>> Not everyone wants to remember the dot-com crash in 2001. I'm Kara Tsuboi CNET.com and I'm about to meet the director of a new film called August that chronicles just that.

>> It's sort of about the rise and fall of a company started by two brothers and how the success and then sort of demise of the company affects their relationship.

>> The industry we're talking about of course is technology -- the dot com world.

>> Dot com.

>> And that is so unique to America at that time period.

>> You know, a lot of those companies were really sort of built around, kind of like cult personality and that's what the Tom Sterling character is. You know, he's sort of like a rock star.

>> Josh Harnet pays Tom Sterling, the millionaire CEO character.

>> The market had been crashing for a while.

>> The market's swarmed with stocks and [inaudible].

>> And yet there was still this strange sense that it was somehow gonna turn around and there was all these really, really ridiculously young people who seem to be worth hundreds of missions of dollars and it was a very weird time and it all ended with 911.

>> Well, the [inaudible] suffered yet another beating this week, but there were a few winners most notably the Lanshark.

>> The interesting thing was, it was kind of like the wild west and that no one knew where this was headed.

>> Actor Adam Scott plays the non-rock star brother Joshua.

>> I was just kind of the brains behind the outfit, so all I had to do was sit at home and be a dork.

>> Lanshark what do you actually do?

>> The brother supposedly ran an specified successful social networking website akin to MySpace or Facebook, but in 2001 the technology wasn't advanced enough nor the audience sophisticated enough.

>> There are a lot of people who managed to raise hundreds of millions of dollars offered you know, sort of flashy high concept that, you know may or may not produce revenue in the end.

>> Why the hell would somebody give you a million dollars.

>> Add two zeros and that's what we're talking about.

>> It was unlike any other economic boom we've ever had and it went away so quickly.

>> And it's such a recent history that must have been really fun to play something.

>> Yeah.

>> That's only 7 years to go.

>> Yeah, it's really weird and how nostalgic you could get for a particular time, as much more innocent time, you know.

>> Yeah, and it was not long ago.

>> It really wasn't. We're still running on the fumes generated during that time period.

>> This will take more than a smoking [inaudible].

>> You know you need to stock up a little bit faith.

>> Go see the movie. David Bowie's in it.

>> We don't much like the way you conduct your business.

>> I'm Kara Tsuboi CNET.com. ^M00:02:24 [ Music ]