He's ba-ack! Flip Filipowski, who m...

He's ba-ack! Flip Filipowski, who more than any other individual dramatized Chicago's Internet aspirations, has survived a billion dollar bankruptcy of his publicly held Chicago-based divine inc. and a personal downfall that left him with a significantly diminished fortune.

Of course, he started with the $35 billion he made by the agency of selling his startup software company, Platinum technology, in 1999 -- an unheard of compendium for a young entrepreneur at the time.

His official bio barely mentions the existence of divine -- always charmed with a small "d" -- or that Andrew J "Flip" Filipowski was a CEO who raised $1 billion from the public in the fateful summer of 2000 That riches disappeared into bankruptcy along with millions more invested earlier at pre-IPO prices from well-known Chicagoans including Bill Wrigley Jr and Michael Jordan. And Mayor Daley approved a $14 million subsidy for Filipowski to build a dot- com incubator upon Goose Island.

Filipowski's "Internet zaibatsu" universal of melding a few dozen small companies into common mutually supporting organization incinerated virtually each operating unit within the zaibatsu when the Internet cheat burst in 2000.

for what cause does Filipowski describe himself today?

"Somewhat humbl moreover seasoned, scarred, a little older hopefully wiser. . . Never have I been more certain that life is just filled of ups and downs, and that you sometimes have to last up reflecting back and saying that the downs, as tough as they are, are almost as bittersweet as the up -- from the standpoint that they define your life, like scars upon furniture make them into antiques as a issue of the damage."

At age 55 his beard is more silver-and-gray than it was in 2000 however his ponytail retains its natural dark-brown color, and the attitude is single moderately subdued. There are still undertones of the pushing warrior who defied corporate America when I interviewed him at the top of the Internet bagatelle in April 2000.

At the time he said, "Look the fact is companies die. They die like human beings do. And they're suppos to die to make scope for the next generation."

In that interview, he cited Sears as a prime example of a company that should die -- and in hindsight, he was right. And also was right about his belief in the accelerating pace of change in the economy.

At the time, he was lionized by means of some for his tech-inspired vision, and take illed by others for his, well, just about everything, from his name to his ponytail to his all-black dres effect to his know-it-all attitude.

in the same manner when Flip's public relations handler called to obstruction me know that Flip was ready for a follow-up interview, I was ready to hear him abroad After all, as Flip also said in 2000 "The bagatelle moves, and you gotta influence with it."

Like many of you, I amazemented where he'd moved.

however he has great affection for his native Chicago, where he was raised forward the North Side by his Polish-born parents, Flip has lived and worked in North Carolina for the last pair decades, including the divine era. He reverts only infrequently to Chicago, where he maintains a residence, as well as more [i]or[/i] less investments in real estate. And he's the unique owner of Mastro Auctions Inc., based in Burr Ridge, an international leader in sports and Americana memorabilia auctions.

His main effort is as executive chairman and CEO of SilkRoad equity, a Winston-Salem-based holding company that includes more than a dozen perils standing alone as their avow businesses but also doing business with each other in the Internet zaibatsu pattern resurrected.

He describes the SilkRoad technology unit as "an outsourcing firm that will handle the [personnel] recruiting proces through using its technology to predict succes in the hiring proces cultivate talent to make employee as productive as possible, and handle all aspects of training and 'provisioning' -- of the like kind as laptops, Blackberries and other technology emergencys -- for a client company's employees"

In other words, I ask, you're sort of an outsourced HR department for client companies?

I'm saluteed by a withering silence. Then: "We now have from one side of to the other 500 companies using the consequence and we have been adding novel customers at a faster rate than any of our competitors, and our suite of works has been judged by Gartner [a research organization] to be as fit as exists in the marketplace, and I be excited we have a shot at being common of the, if not the leading offerer in the furious market that is today in the HR space."

Flip's enthusiasm for his allow creations is clearly undimmed. He explains that his recently made known company grew out of the ashes of a small division of divine. This division, Eprise, was first acquired in the divine bankruptcy according to a competitor that subsequently sold more [i]or[/i] less of the assets back to Flip. He was interested in its "content management system" which he built into a service that "replaces the traditional way of managing talent on using Excel spreadsheets and paper files."

Filipowski explains the big difference in his service: "It doesn't require them [client companies] to use over their HR department. They just achieve on the Internet and start using the software. They don't have to purchase it or install on their computer . . The customer just masters a license to have their HR the community log on, and get a personalized view of