Recap on the rise of fall of Starmedia dot com hype and fraud allegations

"Dot-Com Years

Espuelas, a skilled marketer armed with cash from his successful IPO, was the mastermind of massive public relations campaigns on his own behalf. During the height of the .com bubble, a brief image of Espuelas often appeared within the 15 second top-of-hour video spot on CNN, amongst renowed politicians and celebrities. His public relations firm continually referred to Espuelas as "The Hispanic Bill Gates", a term that the media would accept and recapitulate in articles and interviews referencing Starmedia. As time went on, employees noticed increasingly reckless behavior in Espuelas. In one particularly odd moment, an angry Espuelas allegedly turned over a table of food on top of Quepasa.com founder Jeffrey Peterson amidst a disagreement at a meeting in San Antonio, Texas in February of 1999. In Miami, a team of twelve blue-haired "Starmedia girls" followed Espuelas between media conferences."

http://en.allexperts.com/e/f/fe/fernando_espuelas.htm