SO MANY OF THE COMPANIES that would embody what we think of when we remember the dot-coms shared some or all of Priceline’s traits: a business plan that promised to “change the world”; a Get Big Fast strategy to reach ubiquity and corner a particular market; a tendency to sell products at a loss in order to gain that market share; a willingness to spend lavishly on branding and advertising to raise awareness; and, above all, a sky-high stock market valuation that was divorced from any sort of profitability or rationality.
