The Most Hilarious Oral History Of All Time
Oct. 27 2008, Published 7:07 a.m. ET
Since no one will actually read the enormous Vanity Fair oral history of the Internet, because everyone's attention span has been destroyed by the Internet, perhaps no one has noticed that it is the most hilarious thing ever published—sometimes intentionally. Is the whole piece a prank? Well, it certainly lets Julie Wainwright, the CEO of pets.com, rewrite history. "People think we spent tons of money in advertising. And we didn't, because I only ran ads in key markets," she says. Really? Like that $1.2 million Super Bowl ad? "I shut it down in November 2000 and actually returned money to shareholders," she says. Yes—and took a quarter-million in severance.