THEN: Fucked Company Founder (2000)
NOW: AdBrite Founder and President
Philip Kaplan, aka “Pud,” launched Fucked Company in 2000 to document the growing “dot-com dead pool.” Site features included a rumors mailing list and the Happy Fun Slander Corner, which attracted trolls from far and wide. Kaplan parlayed the site’s success into a book deal with Simon & Schuster in 2002; "F'd Companies" peaked at #12 on Amazon’s best-seller list.
Kaplan stopped updating the website in 2004 to focus on AdBrite, an ad network representing more than 80,000 websites. With backing from Sequoia Capital, the San Francisco-based company has grown to 115 employees. It was recently ranked #34 in Inc. magazine’s "Inc. 5,000" list of the fastest-growing private companies in America.
Reflecting back on his days running Fucked Company, Kaplan wrote to SAI: “[It] was a site for employees -- often disgruntled ones. So I think my time running FC helped me gain perspective on treating employees well and being transparent with them all the time.”
