Return to Virginia Business - April 2002

Winn strikes back

When it comes to chutzpah and salesmanship, few in Virginia can top former e-tailer Craig Winn. With a revivalist's fervor, Winn sold his turbo-charged vision for Value America, a firm based in Charlottesville that Winn insisted would revolutionize retailing by selling everyday goods over the Internet. Yet much of what Winn promised never came true. After bouts of bitter infighting, Winn was pushed out as chairman of the struggling firm in December 1999. The company went bust a few months later, becoming a national example of excess and dashed hopes during the Internet bubble.

The sad outcome has failed to dampen the irrepressible Winn, however. Following a flurry of press accounts detailing his overreaching, including a tell-all book by his former communications chief David Kuo, Winn has struck back. He has written, with colleague Ken Power, his own, 594-page version of the history of Value America, called "In the Comp-any of Good and Evil."

The book - published by CricketSong Books, which Winn owns - is part self-serving history and part Net Vision evangelism. It's also apologetic as Winn takes to task Kuo, his former PR guy, and John Byrne, a senior writer for BusinessWeek whose 2000 cover story examined Winn's loose cannon management style.

Interested readers will have to shell out $29.95 for the Winn book - about five bucks more than for the Kuo book. Another part of Winn's media blitz: His views on the Enron scandal are available from his latest public relations agent in North Carolina.

- Peter Galuszka