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The Man From Mars? Lou Dobbs quit his CNN posts as anchor of the "Moneyline News Hour" and president of CNNfn to preside over space.com. By most accounts, it wasn't a smooth transition for his employer, Time Warner, which had already spent considerable time satisfying Dobb's career demands. Yet "the face of CNN business news" wanted to pursue a more personal, if larger, interest: the universe. Dobbs enlisted advertising aid from the New York City and Buffalo branches of the Wolf Group. Along with $25 million in funding from Venrock Associates, the venture capital firm of the Rockefeller family, Dobbs used his own money to develop the site. Despite the core capital, financial experts are apprehensive about the site's business model. In the burgeoning era of E-commerce, space.com relies upon selling advertising for revenue. Something for Every Astral Body Headquartered in New York City, Space.com debuted on July 20, 1999. Its launch purposely coincided with the 30th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's famous walk on the moon. Marketed as the authority on all galactic matters, Space.com prides itself on having something for everyone. Sci fi buffs can enjoy Area 51, an X-Files-inspired channel full of extraterrestrial news and trivia. For younger stargazers, there's the spaceKids section, full of games and colorful graphics. Amateur astronauts, educators, closeted quasar enthusiasts, and the rest of us have the chance to unravel the mysteries of the heavens in "exploratory missions," "space history," and like channels. Ride, Sally, Ride While Space.com lives up to its reputation in offering something for everyone, the pickings are somewhat slim when it comes to astronomy's foundation: number-crunching and hard science. Unlike the more academic www.nasa.gov, space.com is short on principles such as space plasma physics and microgravity. Fortunately, the appointment of Sally Ride as president adds equal doses of authority and prestige. The first woman in space, Ride took a leave of absence from her Physics post at the University of California to work at Space.com. Black Hole Since the site's launch, more than 10 percent of employees have fled, citing sub-par paychecks and Dobb's allegedly sharp tongue. In fact, insiders say that Dobbs has discarded personal assistants faster than on "Murphy Brown" and can leave employees in tears after his "verbal tirades." Of course, the high turnover may simply be part and parcel of the dot.com industry, where job-hopping is common and company loyalty rare. Employee shortages or not, Space.com stays ambitious, with plans to add offices in Moscow, Paris, Beijing, Tokyo, and New Delhi.
Most jobs at Space.com require space knowledge, or at the very least, considerable enthusiasm for the subject. As head honcho Lou Dobbs is allegedly tough, the site is probably not ideal for those with their heads in the clouds. But employees who have and their feet on the ground - and a curiosity and flair for territories unknown -- should do some jobhunting at http://www.space.com/jobs/.
News and content; Message boards; The "Space Shop"
www.nasa.gov More Company Profiles For more career information, go to Vault.com ©2000, Vault.com Inc
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