"Having a failed business in the US is like a rite of passage, " said Mark Simon, founder of dot.com networking company The Chemistry.

BBC: Only failures need apply

He noticed that the fish had a dime-sized black dot just under its gills, like a beauty mark.

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At the peak of the dot-com bubble in 1999, Wagner and partner, Mark Cuban, sold their fledging company, Broadcast.com, to Yahoo!

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