Former DoubleClick CEO, Kevin Ryan led the company through a period of explosive growth in the late '90's. He took the ad-targeting company from a handful of employees to more than 2,000 in just 4 years before selling to Google for $3 billion . However, as Ryan discusses in this episode of Founder Stories with Chris Dixon , the dot.com bust threatened to wash it all away. Ryan says during the downturn, "we lost 70% of our clients, bankrupt, and the only thing that saved us is we probably lost 80% of our competitors." His white collar war story features seven rounds of layoffs. Make sure to watch this episode as Ryan relates how he rebounded and went on to start AlleyCorp , a network of companies that includes Gilt Groupe , Business Insider , ShopWiki , and 10gen .