<p>In the spring of 2000, Lori Gottlieb was lured away from Stanford Medical School to become editor-in-chief of Kibu.com, a high-profile Silicon Valley startup dubbed at various times in the make-it-up-as-you-go-along Internet Zeitgeist as anything from a &quot;digital lifestyle brand&quot; to &quot;Yahoo! for Gen Y, with an estrogen slant.&quot; But after her comically unceremonious &quot;unhiring&quot; three months later, upon the CEO's return from her elopement in Bali, Gottlieb published an expos茅 in <em>The Industry Standard</em>. Her essay inspired hundreds of emails in response, including one from Jesse Jacobs, then the head of content for IFILM.com, the Net's leading online film site.</p>

<p>They clicked, so to speak, and embarked on a journey to produce a very personal collective memoir of the New Economy. The result is a one-of-a-kind backstage pass to a world of extremes: brilliance and inanity, exhilaration and desperation, and of course, money (real and imagined). Weaving together Gottlieb's experiences at Kibu with those of nearly 100 participants-from media icon Kurt Andersen to popular Bay-area author Po Bronson to Public Enemy rapper Chuck D, Gottlieb and Jacobs present an oral history of a time that is now imprinted, for better or worse, on our collective psyche. Featuring a richly engaging and incisive tapestry of voices from the front lines-venture capitalists and engineers, receptionists and lawyers, advertising executives and CEOs, party planners and pundits, media moguls and MBAs-Inside the Cult of Kibu is much more than an account of life in an alternate universe. It's a unique reflection of what happens when business, technology, and popular culture combine and ignite in a spectacular display.</p>