Here are some "dot-com era" flashbacks from a veteran greybeard:
Near the end of 1999, I moved from SV to smaller hot tech market with more affordable housing. I moved totally cold with no contacts or job lined up. The week after I arrived, I had 3 job offers. I picked the smallest web tech startup. After a couple months they got acquired by a SV megacorp and I was pissed! I wanted nothing to do with being a small fish in a big ocean of a company. But I had just bought my first house and my wife was pregnant. I planned to stick around long enough to vest some options. Then the big crash hit and the majority of web startups were gone and my megacorp's stock had cratered. I had the feeling of winning at musical chairs - Pyrrhic though that victory was.
Am I predicting some future tech industry crash? No, but maybe it is plausible. It does remind a bit of the shoeshine boy stock tip. Maybe the world will finally push back against ad-tech stalker capitalism? Haha - I wouldn't bet on that...
The thing about the .com crash is all the investors were mainly right, besides some ridiculous things. They were just too early as the web didn’t have critical mass until 10 years later and today’s web makes the one of 10 years ago appear quaint. Because of that critical mass I think a similar crash is unlikely across the entire sector.
I don't know, I thought pets.com was stupid then, and chewy.com is stupid now. The main difference is the Chewy guys were smart enough to cash out before the bubble burst again, rather than spending their cash on stadium naming rights.
I have no skin in the game, but I buy things on Chewy because I trust them more than Amazon to not surface cheap crap, and their reviews are better. I checked and it looks like they're revenue positive with >500M cash on hand. They may not be worth their current stock price but I imagine they're going to survive as a company just fine.
VCs are now demanding real revenue these days. Same for public companies. You can still be losing money but as long as there is real revenue growth then it works. Eyeballs or app installs isn’t enough anymore. That’s why I don’t see a crash either.
Near the end of 1999, I moved from SV to smaller hot tech market with more affordable housing. I moved totally cold with no contacts or job lined up. The week after I arrived, I had 3 job offers. I picked the smallest web tech startup. After a couple months they got acquired by a SV megacorp and I was pissed! I wanted nothing to do with being a small fish in a big ocean of a company. But I had just bought my first house and my wife was pregnant. I planned to stick around long enough to vest some options. Then the big crash hit and the majority of web startups were gone and my megacorp's stock had cratered. I had the feeling of winning at musical chairs - Pyrrhic though that victory was.
Am I predicting some future tech industry crash? No, but maybe it is plausible. It does remind a bit of the shoeshine boy stock tip. Maybe the world will finally push back against ad-tech stalker capitalism? Haha - I wouldn't bet on that...