You move out of your house and then years later you drive by to look at what has become of it after you’ve left and find yourself shocked.

About five years ago, I was living among the future millionaires.

Yep.

Hard to believe but, I hob-knobbed with the Future Ugly Cash-rich Kids of the new millennium. Lots of money, lots of brilliant ideas, the future was happening all around us, time to get in on the ground floor and make tons of cash and be set for the rest of your life.

Well, that’s what they would’ve had you believe.

So, blue-collar me is at this place where the visionaries have looked down the road and they see the future is the internet. Overnight (seemingly) this quiet, kinda nice place that was dedicated to doing things really, really well, grew. Lots of new people, big expansion, new name for the company, all these resources focused into this bold new direction.

Money wasn’t the object, new furniture, stationery, do dads with the company logo, more offices, more people... more, more, more. Everything had to happen fast!

Big contest to name the new beast, lots of resources devoted to branding the new company, lots of buzzwords being thrown around.

I’d been there a fairly long time at this point, always as a freelancer but, predating all but a few people. I also kept a fairly low profile, I knew who was in charge and as long as my bill got paid and the flow of work coming my way was steady, there was no reason to complain.

Sure, there was attitude you had to deal with. The future millionaires were usually under 30, generally they viewed the department I worked in as unnecessary (even archaic) and the contempt they held for “print” was easy to see. Theirs was a bold new world! Interactivity! The online experience! Thousands! Nay, millions, treading the hallways of their electronic domain, a virtual world where they were the kings!

Well, it was in that spirit they decided to walk away from the things they had done so well for so long. The things that made the company successful to begin with. They looked at “the old way” of doing things and figured it was going the way of the dinosaur. They shut down the “print” area of the company and a year later...

...they were out of business (or fairly close to it).

What happened to the electronic castles that they built?

In each instance someone else moved into the ruins, I guess it’s just the final irony of the whole fiasco.

Look here (nuforia)...

and here (bma)

All those millions and no one cared about the retaining the domains.