I see it every day. You mention budgets, month-over-month statistics, or anything which would be de riguer in a brick-and-mortar enterprise and these fly-by-the-seat-of-your-holey-jeans Webtrepreneurs suffer My-Eyes-Glaze-Over.

What this means, of course, is that many of them have their Andy Warhol 15 Minutes of Fame and then they are kicked out of their own companies by shareholders or venture capitalists like the two kids who were celebrated for founding the globe.com. Yesterday's news.

OR --- and worst yet --- they end up being the type of managers who make anyone who understands business life A LIVING HELL. Internal communication is fractured, unreliable and non-existent because these idyits are unwilling or unable to put simple directives or agreements in writing. Departments are created and, through benign neglect, dissolved. Projects are suddenly cancelled without explanation. Investments in training or research are hopelessly squandered, or no investment is made in research and development at all.

Vice Presidents both believe that they are in charge of the same projects or the same personnel and then mixed messages are sent to subordinates. OR a turf war, internecine and unavoidable, occurs because NOBODY WAS WILLING TO WRITE A MEMO confirming what had been agreed to in the meeting. OR --- and worse yet --- there were no minutes of the meeting at all.

I personally have gone through the maddening experience of working with a dotcom where every paycheck I received over a period of three months was at a completely different rate. When I tried to rectify the situation the first time, the discrepancy was blamed on a new person in the payroll department. When I tried to rectify the situation the second time, I was quoted a new rate of pay (for the same amount of work) than that I had been quoted by this manager the first time!

And what was I supposed to do for redress, since nobody EVER wants to put anything in writing?

I know: Walk. Believe me it crossed my mind. But I need the money.

Even if its been four separate amounts per performance in less than twelve weeks....

Unlike the Peter Principle effect, where you just had to suck up and hang on until others left in disgust and you were promoted beyond your level of competence, what we are seeing now is early-entry programmers and engineers being made Vice Presidents of start-ups because the enterprise needs to "round out the management team." Little concern is given to how these inexperienced people can evaluate *actual* benchmarks or their ability to husband human capital.

Is it any surprise then that we end up with so many "NetSlaves"-type stories?

I am certainly one of the premiere commentators on the Web to bash "The Suits" at any available opportunity. Nonetheless, clueless as they are about the essence of the Internet, there is one thing that experienced managers always get right: The Bottom Line.

The existing paradigm of the Internet economy that profitability is unimportant is ludicrous and dooms too many start-ups.