lture" hedge funds that specialized in loans Stay Off the Treadmill of Expectations to companies in distress. On August 20, AtHome's outside auditor, Ernst & Young, expressed "substantial doubt" that the company would be able "to continue as a going concern." Ernst & Young was fired the next day. On August 22, AtHome's shares closed at 56 cents, 99 per- cent off the 1999 high. By the end of September, facing debts of $1.2 billion and burning through about $10 million a week with only $150 million in cash on hand, including about $80 million contributed by AT&T, AtHome filed for bankruptcy and agreed to sell its assets to AT&T for $307 million. Within thirty days, AtHome's creditors objected; they de- manded that AtHome close down its service immediately, claiming that the cable companies were underpaying for it. They argued that AT&T was trying to acquire AtHome's network on the cheap and esti- mated that it would cost the company about $1 billion to replicate the service, even though AT&T's chief technology officer had publicly estimated that it could be done in a few months for less than $100 million. The creditors explained their reasoning in their petition to the bankruptcy court: "Only the prospect of turning off the switch will unlock [AtHome's] true value, and here is why. If AtHome terminates service to a cable company, the cable company's subscribers will all need new e-mail addresses. Additionally, the phenomenal growth and market capitalization multiples being enjoyed by the cable companies stem from the cable companies' ability to add 400,000 subscribers a quarter to AtHome's service. Simply put, the value to cable companies of their AtHome contracts is enormous, while AtHome has negative cash flow!"I Thus began a high-stakes game of chicken between AT&T and AtHome's creditors. The bankruptcy court judge was scheduled to issue his ruling on Friday, November 30, 2001, and AtHome's engineers in California spent much of that day in a cat-and-mouse game with AT&T engi- neers: AtHome's engineers were tryin