Not Bulletproof - Industry Trend or Event

Many a hotshot businessman has been toasted -- and then roasted -- by the media. But former Hong Kong boy wonder Richard Li has literally become a cartoon character.

When Li, son of a famous tycoon, started telco and Internet company Pacific Century CyberWorks in 1999, entrepreneurs all over the region dreamed of matching his success and copied his looks by shaving their heads and sporting navy blazers. But when CyberWorks ended last year as Hong Kong's worst performing stock, Li's coterie of admirers vanished.

Now, a 97-page paperback full of jokes and comic strips poking fun at Li has become a bestseller. Mocked as "Super Boy," the once-revered Li is directed to the horror section of the library for a book on how to make an Internet fortune. The title of the book, I.T. Kai, sounds like "I.T. Guy," but is also a play on Li's Chinese name.

The jokes have been making the rounds at dinner tables and cocktail parties for months, but Hong Kong can't get enough. I.T. Kai practically sold out the first week it hit the city's newsstands in March. Perhaps based on the success of its book last year that skewered the city's unpopular head administrator, Subculture publisher Jimmy Pang was confident enough to print 20,000 copies of I.T. Kai, more than six times the usual print run for a Hong Kong book. Another print run is in the works, and given the nearly $900 million loss in 2000 that CyberWorks reported last week, the jokes should last quite a while.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Standard Media International
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group