A Dot-Com Confession (Now With 100% More Yacht and 0% Remorse)!
In 1999, amid the dot-com frenzy—with Pets.com still alive and stock options flowing like champagne—John A. Juster embodies the Silicon Valley dream. A restless software engineer, he ditches Charles Schwab for freepr, a scorching-hot startup. Overnight, he's rich: exotic cars, champion foxhounds, private jets, and his pride—a 78-foot yacht named .Commodore, dripping in mahogany, with a hot tub and turbo diesels.
Success, however, comes with temptation.
What follows is a masterclass in bad decisions. "Harmless" stock tips to friends escalate into a full insider-trading ring so obvious it might as well have its own PowerPoint titled "Totally Legal Wealth Hacks.". Juster leaks earnings intel, funds proxies, and pockets millions. Thrill trumps guilt, drowned in cocktails and engine roars on the Bay.
The crash is brutal: SEC indictment, arrest, frozen assets, company in receivership, friends turning witness. Convicted of obstruction and lying to feds after a grueling trial, he serves over five years at FCI Lompoc—"Camp Cupcake," a dehumanizing warehouse of counts, commissary hacks, and fellow fraudsters.
Stripped bare—yacht auctioned, fortune gone—Juster faces the wreckage: betrayed loved ones, jobless colleagues. Yet he can't fully regret the high.
Released as a felon, he starts over: dishwashing, cooking at a café, rebuilding with his loyal fiancée-turned-wife Elizabeth. Honest labor, it turns out, has its own dignity—but so does the memory of standing at the helm of .Commodore under the sun, throttles wide open, certain he was immortal.
Part confession, part cautionary tale, and part love letter to the manic genius of the dot-com bubble and mahogany wood, ".Commodore" is "The Wolf of Wall Street" meets "Liar's Poker" with a twist. Raw, hilarious, unapologetic, and poignant, dive into the most shameless felony memoir you'll read without getting subpoenaed. Because some highs are so high even six years of strip searches can't ruin the afterglow.