The million dollar mystery behind Milk.com

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 3 September 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When we stumbled upon Milk.com, we were mystified. It appears to be someone’s personal website. But memorable domain names can be worth a million dollars or more. So, why is someone using this valuable internet real estate to post their resume and favorite recipes?

Back in the internet’s early days, it was easy to get a domain name. They were cheap or even free. The first people to grab them may now be holding onto assets that can sell for millions of dollars. These potential profits have attracted a unique breed of investor who buys and sells domain names, gambling on the value of everyday words.

On our latest show: What is a domain really worth? And we ask the owner of milk.com why he’s not selling — and if there’s a price that might change his mind.

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This episode was hosted by Alex Mayyasi and Jeff Guo. It was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by James Willetts. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from CBS and the Money Watch podcast. CBS News Business Analyst and certified financial planner Jill Schlesinger helps take the mystery out of your financial life. New episodes available Tuesday and Thursday mornings wherever you get your podcasts. This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:22.0	So, Jeff, last year I stumbled across a kind of mystery that you and I have been talking a lot about.
0:29.7	Oh, yeah.
0:30.4	Alex, you have been obsessed with this.
0:32.8	It is about this website called milk.com.
0:36.5	Actually, let's just pull it up. Right. So I'm going to
0:39.0	type in milk.com. And it's pretty basic looking. It's black and white. Not many images,
0:48.1	mostly text. And the homepage says something about a lactose pipeline. Yeah, apparently this is
0:53.6	just a personal website
0:55.2	run by a guy named Dan Bornstein. He's got his resume up there and also a page where he puts up
1:01.1	his favorite recipes. Like, he seems to be a fan of a dessert called cornmeal frogies. Whatever those
1:06.3	might be, but my favorite part of the site is the FAQ. Oh, yes, right, right, right.
1:11.2	So, like, question, is milk.com a commercial internet service provider?
1:16.1	Answer, moo.
1:18.5	Question, how much does an ad cost on milk.com?
1:22.0	Answer, moo.
1:23.5	Does milk.com have any ties to the dairy industry whatsoever?
1:27.4	Answer, moo.
1:28.9	Like you knew what was coming.
1:30.3	The answer to every question, we had many questions, the answer was always moo.
1:34.6	Moo all the way down.
1:36.0	Right.
	...

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