What Led to Kozmo's Final Delivery  So close but yet so far.
When Kozmo registered for a $150 million initial public offering
in March, 2000, spirits at the New York-based home-delivery
service for snack food and videos were sky-high. Its investment
bankers were top-tier, the team at Credit Suisse First Boston
led by star banker Frank Quattrone. Its venture lineup had star
power too, notably Amazon.com and Softbank Capital Partners.
With the cash from its IPO, Kozmo planned to expand into 30
cities across the country. At a party on the penthouse floor of
a Manhattan office building just after Kozmo filed for its
offering, then-chief executive Joseph Park hopped up on a table
and told his troops their future was limitless.  Alas, the saga
of Kozmo had no happy ending. On Apr. 11 with its hopes of a
stock offering a distant dream, Kozmo called it quits and laid
off its 1,100 employees (see BW Online, 4/16/01, "Kozmo, We
Hardly Knew Ye"). The company's path from stardom to the dot-com
dustbin is symbolic of the