The true meaning of the word Valuation and the surreal hypocrisy while explaining it!
Commencement Address Washington University Business School 2000
I was watching some politician the other day who was clearly spewing bullshit, as so many of them do. It’s sadly normal business as usual today. But the contrast of the words with reality and truth triggered a memory that still haunts me to this day. It was the weirdest juxtaposition I can remember where I was speaking and outwardly confident, but internally, freaking out and felt like the biggest hypocrite.
It was exactly around the day the dotcom bubble burst. According to most historical sources, the dotcom bubble was the rapid rise of U.S. tech stock valuations in the late 1990’s when the Nasdaq Index ballooned from under 1,000 in 1995 to a peak of over 5000 on March 10, 2000. By then, it was too late for Washington University to rescind my invitation to give the Commencement Address at Washington University Business School in May of 2000.
I was introduced as an “Internet Entrepreneur”, “An innovator of new media”, “An Inc-100 fastest growing company”, and my company, KnitMedia.com (parent company of the Knitting Factory brand) as a world-renown cutting-edge company on the convergence technology and Media. Video tape attached Oh, how embarrassing in retrospect.
Little did the students and faculty know, but hours before delivering the address, my company was being threatened with forced bankruptcy by a Venture Capital group who was liquidating all of their dot.com investments and no matter how I explained that the Knitting Factory brick and mortar business was solid, they wanted to shut us down. Simultaneously, was deeply in negotiation with a possible white knight to loan me the money to save the company, all while I was practicing my speech at the hotel.
I will never forget the surreal time I was having at the podium looking down at myself speaking to the packed fieldhouse with several thousand people and thinking that I was a huge fraud and totally full of shit. I had to keep bringing it back the script, I was so out of sorts. My mouth was reading my well-practiced speech, like my reading of the Torah for bar-mitzvah in a language I didn’t understand, while my mind was 10 feet above looking down at me going, “really Dorf, you know you’re not worthy.”
But there I am talking about profits and EBITDA, to being a global entertainment company, and ultimately, my message to the new graduates, that they should understand a deeper definition of Valuation—not purely money but bringing value to your time on this planet. It was a good message--go out into the world and make sure your vocation is something that you like, do what you love, not just a job for money. And well, that message was honest; I even felt that while being crushed by the money vultures trying to liquidate my company. I was in survival mode, doing the hustle, cutting down every vendor payment possible, reducing staff, begging landlords to give me some breathing room, just to get to another day. While I didn’t aspire to run a business gasping for air, I still loved what I did for living, putting on shows and playing host to the fans. And we did survive, and I was able to leave a few years later and have the incredible privilege to start a new brand and profitable live music/hospitality company.
But I was introduced and there under false pretenses, I was heralded as a success story, a Wash U graduate the younger generation was to look up to. Michael Dorf, opening a chain of Knitting Factory’s around the globe, selling millions of records online, using the internet to stream content before even using the word “streaming”, etc. etc. That is what everyone in room was promised and thought, everyone in the room except for me (and perhaps my wife and good friend Dore who you can hear giggle at my introduction as they held the super 8 camera capturing this ridiculousness).
I see this speech in my mind a lot, while 24 years ago, I still am uncomfortable with it. While proud to have it in my speaking history, the memory of the hypocrisy haunts me to this day. Perhaps it is one the reasons I try very hard in almost every conversation I have, one on one, to one to many, to be as candid and real as possible. The idea of saying something even remotely untrue or from a place of false pretense is unfathomable. It’s why I am continuously freaked out watching these assholes on TV who are constantly saying things they know are false. It really is a talent I will never learn.
I always knew that internet thing was just a fad
Another great column. The hardest thing in today’s World is being true to one’s self while being true to the World we live in