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Strategies & Market Trends : The Thread Formerly Known as No Rest For The Wicked -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kathyh who wrote (34096)	4/29/1999 7:57:00 AM
From: D.Austin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90042

here is an idea for you computer geeks {:-) D.A.High-Tech Workers for Sale on Online By JEAN H. LEE .c The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Available via auction: 16 cybergeeks who work together well and know how to assemble an Internet server. Asking price: $3.14 million. In a novel listing posted on eBay, a team of managers and engineers for an Internet service provider has gone straight to the online auction house that usually sells Beanie Babies and autographed baseballs. They're selling themselves -- and their experience assembling high-tech computer systems. ''I think they're shipped via UPS,'' quips one Internet response to the auction posting. But it's no joke. When the auctioning period closes May 8, the highest bidder will be bound to buy the team, eBay said. ''A lot of people think it's a joke, but I'm totally serious with this,'' a spokesman for the group calling itself ''ispteam'' said Wednesday. The 16 workers -- including a director, two managers, three engineers and five administrators -- claim they currently work, unhappily, for a Silicon Valley company. They're keeping their employer secret for fear of getting fired. ''We were just sitting around talking, watching our company disintegrate and watching all these great people leaving,'' he said. They had been working together for years, and hated the idea of splitting up. Recalling a spoof in which a seller tried to auction off a 16-year-old girl -- eBay yanked the listing -- and real bids for dinner with venture capitalist Steve Jurveston (the $10,000 winning bid went to charity), someone in the group jokingly suggested auctioning themselves off as a team on eBay. ''We're like, 'Wait a minute. That's not a bad idea. That'll work!''' said the spokesman, a 23-year-old software engineer. He offered to take the initiative -- and posted the listing Tuesday night in the computers category. ''Team of 16 employees from major ISP willing to leave as a group,'' the item reads. ''Group formed major ISP presence in Silicon Valley/US and is now looking for other challenges and requires an opportunity with a major player.'' The selling price reflects salaries, including $200,000 for the director and $190,000 for each engineer. ''That would give us all raises,'' the spokesman said. ''That's one of the benefits of putting this on the auction.'' They've also got some requirements: a $320,000 signing bonus, 401(k), stock options. And the company must be based in Silicon Valley or San Francisco. eBay would get a commission of $39,260. ''Nowhere else in the world could this happen,'' said Jean Bagileo, vice president at the Silicon Valley headhunting firm David Powell, Inc. ''It's provocative, it's humorous, you kind of think it can't be true, but go figure. Evidently they're trying to avoid us.'' By Wednesday evening, they had two bids that had met the $3.14 million asking price. And some ''big, cool companies'' -- major names in the e-commerce world -- have already e-mailed asking for resumes, the ispteam spokesman said. eBay has its share of odd auction items. But this is the first selling people, said Kevin Pursglove, a spokesman for San Jose-based eBay, which has almost 2 million items for sale today. ''This is certainly one of the more interesting items we've had,'' he said. ''It could be the start of something really big.'' It beats dealing with headhunters, the ispteam spokesman said. AP-NY-04-28-99 2351EDT