In the name of egalitarianism and free speech, Vault.com even provides a public, anonymous community area for its own employees. But right now, it seems that Vault.com's employees are more interested in complaining about one another than in bitching about their bosses. Among some of the choice epithets currently being bandied about on the Vault.com bulletin board are "When is the last time you got laid?"; "You people are fucking ridiculous. Do you have lives? Live and let live mother fuckers"; and "You don't have the guts. Pussweed!"

Vault.com was founded on the premise that defending the principle of free speech can be part of a business model. There was also a chance that the company could do some good, that helping staffers anonymously air their grievances with their higher-ups would improve workplace environments around the world. But turning a cubicle bitch-a-thon into a v.c.-backed dot-com with an eye toward an IPO is a dangerous and difficult path to tread. Vault.com is learning this the hard way. Over the past six months the company has fielded accusations of hypocrisy from its own employees, some of whom went as far as setting up their own Vault.com-style gripe site at Bitchvault.com. Today, the sniping has degenerated to the point that the FBI has become involved in the company's internal bickering, and is investigating an alleged attack on Bitchvault.com that occurred last August.

The founders of Vault.com are strong supporters of the right to anonymity. This makes ascertaining what, exactly, has been happening behind the walls of the company in the last year a bit arduous. As I reported on the schism between Vault.com and Bitchvault.com, not one person at either organization was willing to go on the record, not even the official Vault.com spokesperson. The mess is a dyspeptic mix of utopian idealism mixed with the ugly mudslinging of anonymous online communities: When you take a world of flame wars, petty workplace grievances and "common man vs. authority" angst and slap it with a brand so you can turn it into a business, it seems inevitable that you'll eventually face your own favorite demons.

Vault.com was founded in 1997 as the realization of an idealistic vision held by three young men: Mark Oldman and Samer Hamadeh, who co-wrote "America's Top Internships" in the early 1990s, and Hamadeh's brother Hussam. Originally called "Vault Reports," the company provided "insider" insights into the workplaces of many of America's most prominent companies. Today the site publishes daily news reports on companies ranging from BBDO to Chase H&Q to Kenneth Cole, and also publishes how-to books for workers. But the company truly exploded in 1998 when it began providing free, anonymous bulletin boards on which employees could share war stories and complain about inner-office politics.

Then, in 1999, Vault.com's heady idealism and value to the downtrodden workers of the world became abundantly clear in the wake of the Christian Curry scandal at the investment bank Morgan Stanley. Bank employees eager to talk about why this gay African-American employee had been fired began visiting the Vault.com boards to discuss discrimination issues; but when Morgan Stanley officials discovered the debate, they blocked employee access to the site. Vault.com countered by parking a movable billboard across the street from the Morgan Stanley office and broadcasting new, unblocked Web addresses for the employees to use to visit the discussion boards.

"That's the core of what Vault Reports stood for -- we're providing this open-access message board for you to post openly and freely. Tell us what it's really like where you work -- people, management, perks, everything. And they defended everyone's right to say what they wanted to say as long as it wasn't outright illegal and slanderous," explains a former Vault.com employee who later went on to launch Bitchvault. "But as the story unfolds, as soon as it takes a turn in their direction, they all of a sudden got very nervous and got a taste of their own medicine."

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