MovieChat Forums > Startup.com (2001) Discussion > Ok, need help with a few things...

Ok, need help with a few things...

posted 10 years ago by outsideartist
5 replies | jump to latest

I find this entire subject fascinating, but the movie was so poorly edited that I do not know exactly how the business failed as badly as it did. I also don't understand why Tom was fired, or, on a less contextual note, what happened to Dora.
When they were broken into, it looked as though that was the end of everything. They took all of the hardware, made a mess, and, I imagine, created a very destructive paranoia because it seemed likely that it was an inside job. But in the next scenes, they are right back in business.
Then, it is decided that Tom has to go. Why? How about firing 150 of the unnecessary employees that you prematurely took on without knowing what the hell you were doing, rather than one of the original founders and your best friend?
We see a guy very efficiently paying a parking ticket, so how did that great idea turned into workable software turn out not to be profitable?
Next thing you know, old Tom is out on his ass and he is treated like the company pariah, replete with tailing thug. What gives?
It seemed to me that a lot of the film was positing for the camera and creating drama for its own sake. (author shakes head).

[–] sissywillard 10 years ago

I agree and wonder the same: what exactly brought the company down?

As for Tom's dismissal, the editing of the film shows on at least 3 occasions where Tom was in conflict with what Kalael wanted for the company, whether it was in representing the business, or directing employees on trivial matters, to kind of talking down the authority of his BFF/CEO. Tom also made insensitive remarks in at least one scene where Kalael was explaining how badly the business was doing and Tom said he himself was not in any immediate danger of failure. And in that scene, along with a couple other previus scenes, Tom brought up the idea of just giving up govworks and starting another company. So I guess all these little things added up in Kalael's business mind that Tom was not a good fit.
There was also that scene where he and Tom where discussing their roless at govworks, and Kalael I think said they were NOT co-CEOs and if that was a problem then Kalael would voluntarily leave. So it seemed Tom maybe was too aggressive at times in trying to find his place in the company. It seemed he always wanted to make a speech, or address the employees, right after Kalael gave his final thoughts. Who comes in right behind a CEO and says "...wait, one more thing..." If anything, Tom's job was wingman and all he needed to say after Kalael's addresses was "...OK let's go back to work..." or something traditional like that.

As for Dora: I noticed through-out the film Kaleal had 3 relationships. Dora; the girl pissed off about his email-writing; and at the end, the girl tossing a toy off the balcony for the dog to fetch. So, nothing 'happened' to Dora, perse. The dude just wasn't ready to be tied down to one woman.

I even wonder if Tom was the one to orchestrate the 'break-in' just cuz he didn't like how things were going, and that was his way of showing Kalael it was time to move on to other ideas. I dunno. But I've watched this docu sevral times and find everything about it facinating.

[–] outsideartist 10 years ago

Thanx for those thoughts. Does make things clearer. May I also suggest a film called 'E-dreams'. About another start up company, promising a fascinating take on a similar subject, but equally poorly edited and frustrating in its personalities and presenteation.

[–] vincent-27 8 years ago

What brought the company down is that they, like most of young entrepeneurs of the dot com boom, thought they could skip all the normal methods of building a company, i.e. starting small and building over time after successfully executing a business plan and building a solid revenue. People had IPO blindness, and that was goal of their plans, rather than actually building a business. In a word, it was greed.

As for Tom, to be fair, there is a background story to the business not properly shown in the movie. Tom already had a company I believe called Public Data Systems ("soon to be govworks" as he says at the beginning) which he was running, so obviously he had some trouble letting go of running things.

I saw somewhere (I think in the commentary) that the filmmakers had a lot of regrets that they seemed to always just miss key events in the business, however I think some subtitles or clips with just text to explain things might have helped. It looked pretty obvious that Dora was not getting enough out of the relationship, I guessing she left him.

--
Surrender Dorothy!

[–] outsideartist 8 years ago

Yeah, the startup enthusiasm outweighed any sense of caution with many people.

[–] 8 years ago

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