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Rumors, Conspiracies, etc.

by Ryan

Thu, Nov 23rd 2000 2:04pm





AOL Roughs Them Up

from the big-bad-bullies dept

The engine behind AOL's impressive revenue growth has always been called into question due to the ridiculously favorable deals they've tended to make. Now a few ex-AOL employees have revealed how they basically used their status to bully smaller companies into signing these unfavorable deals. I was sort of shocked when one executive described how he was made to cry during a deal making session (come on guys it's just business don’t be such a wimp).

3 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    Yeah

    identicon
    Ryan, Nov 23rd, 2000 @ 2:47pm

    I've always thought of AOL as a monolith - kind of hard to tell whether they were evil or not. They were never as 'evil' as Microsoft, but I never believed they were the epitome of corporate saintliness. Maybe they were just being quieter. I think they bought a lot of people off by sending free disks in the mail (for those of you who don't know, AOL sent out diskettes in the mail with AOL software). I don't think that a company can become as hugely successful as AOL without stomping on others and doing a little bullying - I mean, you have to be aggressive to succeed, and most people are looking out for themselves in every situation.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    Re: Yeah

    identicon
    Ed, Nov 24th, 2000 @ 1:18am

    Is there anybody in the civilized world who has not received an AOL diskette or CD?

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Re: Yeah

    identicon
    Ryan, Nov 24th, 2000 @ 1:56pm

    Probably not as they probably recycle it for housing in the third world. I know it was a bad joke!

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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