AllMovie

Dot Con takes the viewer behind the scenes of the boom and bust of the dot-com businesses in the mid- to late '90s. The dot-com boom bypassed, and perhaps broke, a number of traditional business rules. Traditionally, venture capitalists offered financial support to new businesses until they became profitable. At that point, they sought out investment bankers to provide money to take the new company public. In the excitement of dot-com potential, however, bankers began to provide money to new companies with no track record. Indeed, some went public before they even had office furniture. A positive belief that the stock would do well led to 400 and 500 percent mark up from a stock's initial offering price, making a new company worth billions on paper. Insiders, however, would make most of the money. Investment bankers offered the stock to favored customers at its initial offering price, and once the price skyrocketed, the stock was "flipped," or sold for a large profit. When bankers began to fear that the stock of these infant companies was over-inflated in the late '90s, they discontinued their funding and the market quickly collapsed. Dot Con explores these complex issues along with allegations by the Securities and Exchange Commission of illegal kickbacks by investment bankers.