Henry Blodget, who was ridiculing dot-com stocks within the friendly confines of Merrill Lynch while touting them to the investing public, has stepped back into the spotlight with - what else - a blog called Internet Outsider. While I have no tolerance for the self-serving, unethical, greed-driven behaviour during the dot-com boom, Blodget has paid the price: he was forced to leave Wall St. and, more important, loss the respect of the market. That said, he's entitled to have another chance. After all, if Mary Meeker (a.k.a. The Queen of the Internet) can still be toiling away at Morgan Stanely as if nothing happened (e.g. she couldn't see or wouldn't conceded that most of her dot-com calls were going sour), then Blodget should be able to do his thing too. Meeker's continued role as an Internet insider makes me laugh because I thought she lost all her credibility when the bubble burst. The key to her survival as a Wall St. analyst is her and Morgan Stanley's ability to act like it's business as usual and as for the abrupt end of the dot-com boom: shit happens. Two words of advice for anyone following Meeker's bullish Chinese Internet spiel these days: caveat emptor. From living in Hong Kong and watching too many U.S. executives talk about the Chinese "opportunity", it's difficult to get a real handle on the Chinese market and what's happening unless you live there or have very smart people on the ground providing you with insight. Anyway, I'm way off track but seeing Henry back in the public eye made me all nostalgic.
Update: One person none too pleased to see Blodget blogging is Om Malik, who wonders whether Meeker and Jack Grubman are poised to join the blogosphere.