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When the dot-com mania struck, Ross Dove didn't go out and buy a Razor scooter or ditch his old wardrobe for a Banana Republic makeover. The Internet was not going to turn him, or his company, topsy-turvy but it was going to make things interesting.
So, Dove Brothers, the industrial auction firm founded by Dove's grandfather in 1937, became DoveBid. The family business continued to help companies find buyers for old or surplus equipment and machinery - very old economy. But alongside the familiar auctioneer's gavel, now stood a web browser. DoveBid's auctions were going digital.
"My philosophy from the beginning about the whole Internet thing was to take an old business and just make it better," says Dove, chairman and CEO. "We were not smart enough...