Tech Talk: Hype Sells

AN STYLE="font-size: 75%; color:#990000; font-weight:bold">Monday, May. 28, 2001 Back in February, I wrote about the Asian Internet Awards (Asia's Internet Oscars), and basically how they weren't worth the hyped-up html they were printed with.

One featured category was that of "Internet Visionary of the Year." The official nominees were: Keichi Tachikawa, CEO of NTT DoCoMo; Chandrababu Naidu, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh state in India; Edward Tian, CEO of Netcom China; Shao Yibo, CEO of China's Eachnet; and Dennis Lee, who co-founded the Singapore B2B, Elipva.

Bah humbug to all of those, I said. My nomination went to Hong Kong's (or is it Chiang Mai's?) Dr Doom, Marc Faber, who said a year earlier, a full two months before the tech industry tanked, that Asia's Net boom didn't amount to much either.

But I was wrong about one of the nominees, Elipva's Lee. He turned out to be true visionary, much more so than the eventual winner of that gong, DoCoMo's Tachikawa. Indeed, Lee was a man way ahead of his time. So far ahead that he was publicizing and celebrating at conferences a life of extraordinary achievement way before he'd actually done any of the things he said he had. (For your information, Lee doesn't work at Elipva anymore.)

Sound familiar, Richard Li? Millions of PCCW investors thought they were backing a Stanford graduate and erstwhile Palo Alto burger flipper who occasionally dropped in on lectures. Come on now Richard, fess up. Did you really do time at the Golden Arches? Singaporeans always wonder why they're not like Hong Kong. Now they can stop.

Plenty of us have buffed up our lives, making them seem something they're not. Ever met a "refuse technician?" You actually met the trashman. What about that fascinating "sanitation professional?" He's the guy who collects 20 cents from you when you go spend a penny.

And, hey, embellishment is what greases the wheels of the real estate industry. Rustic, charming renovator's opportunity? Er, make that a dump a stray dog wouldn't go near. My personal favorite for a valiant attempt to push up property prices was the time I rented an apartment in San Francisco's Cow Hollow district during the Nerdistan Net boom, the real one. The tony area was high-rent enough for me, and I certainly didn't need the topographically and socially challenged realtor (blonde, Big Hair and fortysomething, natch) to describe it as "Lower Pacific Heights" to convince me to sign the lease.

But hype sells, and, as someone once said, never let the facts get in the way of a good story. I saw another good one recently from Singapore's ubiquitous Shabnam Melwani, the poor little rich kid from the music website Soundbuzz, about whom it's said the most dangerous place in Singapore is between her and someone from the media.

Following a write-up in London's "Financial Times" -- as if the Shabster needed any more publicity -- Melwani embarrassed herself in an e-mail to friends, colleagues and associates claiming that little old Soundbuzz had at last been recognized by the "international community." Hmmm, is that the same "international community" Presidents and diplomats appeal to when solving problems like Bosnia, Palestine and East Timor? Fingers off the keyboard, Shab!

And you too Dennis Lee, formerly Elipva's (nee Sttarfire.com) chief technology officer, a site part owned by the Singapore government-controlled Singapore Technologies. If you didn't receive a personal commendation letter from IBM's CEO, Lou Gerstner, or a medal from the International Olympic Committee president, Juan Antonio Samaranch, don't say that you did.

And Dennis, if you didn't write six books about Java -- the killer app, not the island -- at least remember their titles when asked about them. And when you said you graduated from the National University of Singapore, don't go telling others that it was actually Nanyang, particularly when your bosses are trying to raise new capital in this tough market.

But in terms of being an Internet visionary, Dennis, those pictures on your website of the plaques from Stanford and the American Association for Artificial Intelligence are the creations of a genius.

It's just as well for Dennis Lee that new Net companies are called start-ups. Because existing companies won't be hiring people like him. Not if they want to be taken seriously.