[at-fates-hands]

Nope.

One of the startups was a telecom company, the other an educational software company.

The telecom company was the one that burned through all the millions. They had an exclusive contract with one of the regional bells and were trying to make high speed internet accessible to the masses. They were banking on fiber instead of the existing DSL which ran over copper. Essentially using T1 fiber to give high speeds at the cost of copper DSL.

They thought they had a home run with a growing base of clients, and were trying to get acquired more than build the next Frontier Telecommunications.

They had a crazy story, maybe sometime I'll let the details go. That was a crazy time for sure.

[hanley]

I think you missed the reference. They were referring to a company from the TV show Parks & Recreation. See here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX0ZF8f8G0A