A second act for Mr. Paternot. I can't believe it has been six years since the TGLO IPO.
nytimes.com
Dot-Com Star, Indie Filmmaker
By ROBERT JOHNSON
Published: November 14, 2004
When theglobe.com first sold shares to the public in 1998, its stock famously soared 900 percent in a day - and the company's 24-year-old co-founders, Stephan Paternot and Todd Krizelman, were entrepreneurs to be envied.
But theglobe.com's day was short-lived - as was Wall Street's adoration of its founders. The company, which organized "online communities" of people with various interests and hobbies, never figured out how to make money doing so. "My stock in the company made me worth $100 million overnight," Mr. Paternot said recently. "Within a year or so the stock was worth next to nothing." It closed Friday at 52 cents a share, down about 99 percent from its post-I.P.O. peak in mid-1999.
Like many young dot-com entrepreneurs, Mr. Paternot readily concedes that he was better at raising money in a stock offering than running a company. He and Mr. Krizelman quit as co-C.E.O.'s in 2000, yielding to pressure to hire more experienced management for the company.
Focusing on the day-to-day operations of the company was difficult, he said. "It takes up your life," he said. "People are miserable when the stock is down 20 percent and euphoric when it's up. It gets so all your emotions and energy are tied up in the stock."
With its founders departed, theglobe.com has managed to stay alive, though not thrive. It moved from Manhattan to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and has closed its Web portal to concentrate on two new businesses: online entertainment and Internet telephony.
Mr. Paternot is reinventing himself, too. He founded a high-tech venture capital fund called Actarus in 2002 that he says has been profitable through telecommunications investments. (It also invested in theglobe.com when shares traded for about a nickel.)
He and several partners recently created Palm Star Entertainment to make low-budget independent films.
"We're in the middle of raising $35 million to $135 million," he said. "Our goal is to capture a significant share of the independent film market." He reckons to spend about $1 million a movie.
One movie he wants to make is a semi-autobiographical account of his time running theglobe.com. And one way to save money, he said, might be for him to play the lead himself. "Who knows the part better than I do?" he asked.
--Robert Johnson |
