Seems needless, as though it is easy and obvious to discount all technical knowledge because of an association with a once-popular, now-declined site that failed for reasons precious few to do with their technology or ability as developers.
Actually, the Stanford ETL podcast with Tom Conrad (Pets.com, Pandora) was very insightful [1]. Just because a particular company failed does not mean they don't have good domain knowledge. In fact, I think I'd rather listen/read about failed companies and what they learned instead of successful ones.
