help him create some website templates. He was also going to pay me handsomely. I put in for some vacation time and went.
Tujunga is a decent sized town, about an hour outside of L.A. George’s office was quite impressive. He leased a large building in the downtown area. Inside, he had a fairly large staff of employees. Some were managing the office and clients; others seemed to be just there to serve George. There was an old man, probably in his seventies, that would do anything George asked, from getting him a cup of coffee to pulling weeds in his front lawn.
I spent a week with George and his fiancée, Yvonne. During that time, we talked about how he wanted to raise millions of dollars for an Internet business. I didn’t know if it was his being so close to Silicon Valley or the hourly glasses of scotch that made him think he could raise that kind of money, but it sounded sexy, so I listened.
George’s dream was to challenge eBay. He was convinced he could raise enough money from private investors to take on one of the world’s biggest websites. While I never imagined he would come close to achieving that goal, I thought even if he could grab a small percentage of the online auction market, that would be a pretty decent chunk of change.
On the last day of my visit, George was supposed to pay me $5,000 for my work. Just hours before he was going to drive me back to LAX airport, he posed an offer to me. I could take the check for five grand or I could drive home in one of his three vintage cars. I chose the latter and three days later, pulled into my Biloxi, MS driveway in a near mint condition 1973 candy apple red convertible Corvette.
The car made me think exactly what George wanted me to think. He was the real deal.
A few weeks later, he made me an offer to work for him full time. This was a hard decision, as I had a job making seventy thousand a year and it was one of those jobs where it would take an act of Congress to lose. But the Internet was the future and I knew I would never make millions working for the government.
George offered me $60,000 a year and two million shares of stock in the newly created “BidBay.com”. I took the deal and quit my job.
BidBay.com kicked off like gangbusters. George put a fund raising team together that included a former U.S. Congressman and some fancy Wall Street guys. The money started to pour in. Millions, just as he said it would. The official launch of the site came after a professionally produced TV commercial aired during the NFL playoffs. I remember sitting in George’s living room hitting the refresh button to see how many people signed up. Thousands were coming in every minute. This was going to be big.
I was flying back and forth between Mississippi and LA about twice a month. I liked working from home, but my time in Tujunga made me feel like royalty. Every lunch was catered and every day ended with beer and scotch. Dinners were at the finest restaurants in town. This was the life I wanted to live.
Once, towards the end of a strategy meeting, a woman walked in and arrogantly said she needed to paint George’s building. She was a location manager for a major production company. A few weeks later, I was back in town and on the set of a John Travolta movie. Things were great.
Then a speed bump.
George called one morning and told me the company was being sued by eBay for using the word “Bay” in the name. After a short battle, BidBay gave up and turned the trademark and domain name over. But that didn’t stop George. After some regrouping and under a new name of AuctionDiner, the company went forward, raising even more millions.
The money was coming from a private placement memorandum, or PPM. A team of fast talking, market savvy telemarketers were calling private investors and telling them of the great potential the site had. This was 1999 and money was flowing all over the dot com world, so I never thought twice about it. There was talk of an IPO and I was holding a ton of shares. I was going to be rich. Life was good.
Then it wasn’t.
Almost four months into my employment and despite a one year employment contract, George called to tell me I was fired. I couldn’t believe it. The company implemented just about every marketing idea I threw out there and the site was growing rapidly. This was absurd. He even wanted my stock back, saying I didn’t finish the required one year of employment in order to keep the shares. I was pissed, but wasn’t going down without a fight.
I did what every good Jewish boy from Boston would do. I lawyered up and filed suit.
George had an insurance policy that covered lawsuits like these and the case was quickly settled. As I recall, the settlement was around a hundred thousand dollars. Of course, the lawyers got a good chunk of that, but a fair share still went into my pocket. I also got a good bit of the stock back. There was still hope for me to make millions off of this online auction site. I paid close attention to what the company was doing, in hopes of hearing those three wonderful letters: IPO.
Months later, George and I made amends. Despite the fact that he tried to screw me, I missed the guy. He was like a cartoon character, full of life and very spontaneous. He asked me to once again work for him and come up with a redesign for the site. I flew out to meet with him and Yvonne at their new house - a hillside mansion, complete with tennis courts and Arabian horses. Call me crazy, but I took the job. No contract this time, just a project that took about three months to complete and paid a pretty good penny.
In 2000, the dot com bubble had burst. The chances of an IPO were now slim to none. George and I spoke less and less, but I still kept my ears open. I was a shareholder and I still had hope that I would make my fortune with this company.
Years later, I got a call from George. Once again, he wanted to hire me. By this time, I was living in Las Vegas and well into the next chapter of my life. But Tujunga was just a few hours away, so I made the drive in to hear what ol’ Georgie had to say.
He was looking for a new direction. eBay was stronger than ever and many smaller online auction sites failed at taking on the giant. BidBay / AuctionDiner was one of them.
This was right around the time when social media was sprouting up. MySpace was in its heyday and people were starting to talk about a site called FaceBook. My idea for George was to socialize the site. Make it more of a community where buyers and sellers could interact. Turn it into the “MySpace of auction sites”.
George loved the idea and offered me a good deal of money to handle the redesign. I took the deal, but this time, I outsourced all the work. George and his team loved the final product. They relaunched the site under the new name of AuctionCities. This was an idea that I believed could work. I had new hope for that stock certificate collecting dust in my file cabinet.
Again, the months went by and George and I talked less and less. The site and George were almost out of my mind completely, when I caught an article online saying he was being sued for fraud.
All those millions the company was raking in, the mansion on the hill… well, apparently, things weren’t on the up and up. He was sued by investors, who claimed they were lied to. I read about some investors being told the company was on the verge of being bought by eBay. Others said they were told former President George Bush was on the board of directors. The stories got more and more farfetched. In the end, George and company lost and so went his money, the company, and my hopes of ever cashing in.
It has been about seven years since I spoke to George. When I started writing this book, I decided it was time I give him a call. I was planning to catch up on some old stories and make sure I was accurate in my retelling of them.
The number I had for George was his private cell phone number. He had the same number for many years, so I was surprised to hear the
