Doing More, Getting Less: The Unmaking of Work

I grew up in Silicon Valley, but I was young enough that I don't have many memories of the first Internet bubble. There was the logoed duffel in my closet that long outlived Fogdog, an early online sporting-goods store acquired by eBay, and the classmate in fourth or fifth grade whose mom worked for Webvan, the online grocer, and one day struck it rich. (That day was probably November 5, 1999, when the company's stock closed 65 percent above its initial offering.) I didn't understand how a person working at a job could suddenly get rich in the course of a single day, but I didn't want to look dumb, so I decided not to ask. A couple of years later, Webvan flamed out in spectacular fashion, after burning through more than $800 million in shareholder capital.