Easy Virtual Money.

INSTANT INTERNET WEALTH STARTED WITH REGISTERING and reselling so-called domain names, then the fount became issuing stock to e-crazed investors. Now launching sites with hopes of selling out to well-funded web kingpins is the biz plan du jour. These billions in virtual wealth inspired the Subasta.com story (see page 64)-a fly-on-the-wall view of an Internet start-up.

At six feet, seven inches tall, LATIN TRADE freelancer and former pro basketball player Derek Reveron would hardly seem the likely candidate for inconspicuous reporting. But Derek is no stranger to this type of story. He has trailed people for days and even months for The Miami Herald, National Public Radio, The Wall Street Journal and other major media. "It takes some folks a while to lose their self-consciousness," Derek says. "The folks at Subasta.com were as close to genuine as possible with me breathing down their necks."

With so much at stake, why would company founder Craig Doriot and marketing director Riccardo Costa grant a reporter carte blanche to their operations? Obviously, the young entrepreneurs want their work to stand out in the competitive web world, caution be damned. (In contrast, strategic alliance manager Frank Garcia, who is older and more corporate than Doriot and Costa, questioned the wisdom of letting Derek run rampant.)

For his part, Derek says, "I learned more about an Internet start-up than I would likely absorb in a semester's worth of MBA classes:' We hope you will too.

Mike Zellner

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