Po Bronson's 1999 article about Epinions, then a
Po Bronson's 1999 article about Epinions, then a nascent startup, is a neat little time capsule of the period just before almost everything in Silicon Valley went poof.
Everything is faster. Zero drag is optimal. For a while, new applicants would jokingly be asked about their "drag coefficient." Since the office is a full hour's commute from San Francisco, an apartment in the city was a full unit of drag. A spouse? Drag coefficient of one. Kids? A half point per. Then they recognized that such talk, even in jest, could be taken as discriminatory in a hiring situation.
Epinions is still going and is now owned by eBay. (via sippey, who is somewhat of an internet time capsule himself)