PREMIUM SEARCH Search by job title, geography and build a list of executive contacts
Jumping out of an airplane at 10,000 feet is easy. It's the landing that's hard. That's when bones break, ankles twist, and Achilles' heels rupture. The key is to lift your legs and slide into the ground as if you're going for home plate.
That's about all I remember of my first 30-minute skydiving tutorial. Well, that, and Bud, my "jump master," who looked as if he'd come straight out of a Chapstick commercial. It was 8:30 on a Saturday morning, and I'd already been up since 5 a.m. to make the two-hour trek to rural Sussex, N.J., to Skydive Sussex.
But I wasn't the only half-awake student with sleep crusties still stuck in the corners of my eyes. I was one of 74 dot-com city slickers who participated in Web Dive 2000, a shindig organized by Peter Shankman, president of Geek Factory, a public-relations company. The purpose? "It started out as an idea for something fun my staff could do this summer," Shankman says. "But as with most of my ideas, it turned into an event with corporate sponsors and T-shirts."
"BONDING." I admit to being amazed when I turned up at the appointed meeting place in the predawn hours one Saturday in late July to find dozens of people milling around two yellow school buses (our nice, safe mode of transportation). Shankman had extended his invitation to New York's Net community and was hardly at a loss for takers. The 60-person waiting list was almost as long as the participant roster.
For most people, Web Dive 2000 was their first jump. Everyone worked for one or another of Silicon Alley's dot-coms: DealTime.com, eWomp.com, Juno, Xceed Technologies, and Mimeo.com were just a few of the companies represented. In some cases, entire company posses went -- CEO in tow. "It's a bonding experience," says Terry Young, president of Q-markets, who ponied up the $200-per-head jump fee for several of his employees.
According to Bud, our group was the largest he has ever had in his six years of running the Sussex "drop zone," which made me think that there is a direct correlation between going to work at an Internet company and being willing to jump out of a plane two miles above the ground. Jumping out of a single-engine plane with nothing but a parachute and another person strapped to your back isn't very different from starting your own Net company with nothing more than an idea and an angel investor to back you up.
And as I saw my jump partner get sucked over the edge of our Cessna, I couldn't help but think that being part of the Net industry is like falling through the sky at 120 miles per hour. It equips you with a new understanding of gravity. Every day at a high-tech startup, where the pace is so frenzied, the expectations so grandiose, must feel like free fall -- those 30 seconds or so when you're plummeting to earth. No one has time to gather their wits about them. "Arch, arch," my tandem guide yelled at me, referring to the correct free-fall position. "IPO, IPO," must be what they yell for encouragement in Net speak.
ADRENALINE JUNKIES. The way the parachute opens and jerks a jumper back skyward made me think of the dose of reality administered to dot-commies by the markets in April. Just as shifts in wind direction call for last-minute changes in your dips and swirls as you navigate your path, market fluctuations mean layoffs and revised business plans. Most of the Net folks I went skydiving with were adrenaline junkies and hardly out of their element at all. Some work for companies that won't make it -- to Wall Street or profitability. But for them, jumping was a chance to see a process through to the end and land safely, richer at least in experience.
It was also a chance to commune with more than a computer screen. We were prepped in groups of seven or eight, and only two jumpers went up in a plane at once, so most of the afternoon was spent lazing around, getting to know one another. "I've met a lot of people whose names I knew but whose faces I didn't," says Catherine Skidmore, technology director for VillageVentures.com. Two jumpers even worked for the same company and didn't realize it until Web Dive 2000.
After jumping, most people's reactions were the same: "Awesome," "exhilarating," "unbelievable." Nearly everyone said they would do it again, and I overheard several people talk about wanting to learn to jump on their own.
Bud's wife, Kathy, who certifies solo jumpers, says it's usual to have a few enthusiasts from a group, but not so many as they were this time. "Most of the people in my classes are guys going through midlife crises who never finish the course," she jokes. Now, it seems she'll have a new student profile: the dot-com employee. As for me, I'm glad I jumped, but I think I'll stick with being a professional observer of dot-com startups.
When she's not flying toward the earth at 120 mph, Eads covers the dot-com economy for BW Online in New York Edited by Beth Belton
Copyright 2000, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
Printer-Friendly Version
