4 ms·

What did 1999 feel like and how did it feel different than today?

6 points by justinzollars 10y ago

I feel like we are in boom times but the fundamentals are bad. I see a lot of Greed and some bad things as a result: fake news, click-bait etc. How did 1999 feel? Did it feel different than now?

nostrademons 10y ago
No way. 1999 was full of optimism; you'd go see (non-technical) friends over dinner and they'd talk about how they were suddenly rich because they'd invested in dot-coms. Even if you were more prudent and hadn't put your net worth into tech stocks, you still enjoyed the benefits of delivery startups offering below-market prices because of VC subsidies, advertising startups that paid you to browse the web, and this huge wealth of information that was just beginning to be explored. Broadband and streaming video had just been introduced, and available bandwidth was increasing by an order of magnitude roughly every 2 years, with prices remaining about the same. Computers were also still doubling in speed & hard disk capacity every 2 years. Oh, and everybody had jobs: the dot-com boom startups tended to hire rabidly (across the country, too, not just in Silicon Valley), which created a labor shortage and pushed up wages. If I had to equate it to a recent year, I'd say early 2014. I'd say that today feels much more like 2002 or early 2010. In other words, we're in a bust, at least in the tech industry. You see a lot of greed because we're in the hangover from a boom, where all the malfeasance that was papered over when stock prices were going up comes to light - in boom times, everybody just assumes that it's the natural order of things for everything to go up. The technology world also fixates on many of the same things that were common in 2002-2003. There's the same concern about computer security - in 2003 the web just basically broke, Microsoft had a complete monopoly on both browser and OS and every month there was a new worm that spread across the Internet. There's the same interest in P2P and decentralized alternatives which comes from people not trusting centralized institutions or corporations. There's also a resurgence in interest in programming languages and system software, which comes because when people aren't getting rich off software, the MBAs all go away and you're left with the hardcore techies. Big differences from the 99-03 cycle: there's an oligopoly (ApAmaGooBook) of major tech companies rather than a monopoly (Microsoft). Markets are bigger: Paul Graham is a celebrity for selling his company for $40M, but that wouldn't even register today, a hot startup isn't hot unless it's worth at least $1B. Most of the wealth is private; SOX killed the IPO market, so ordinary people can't get rich off startups but aren't wiped out either. It's also more geographically concentrated in the Bay Area: the first dot-com boom actually created a lot of companies throughout the country, but the privatization of growth capital means that growth industries now only happen in major cities. The barriers to entry to getting into the industry are higher: I started writing websites as a high-school student, but now you need to know Babel/ES6/React/Webpack/Node/etc. just to get started as a frontend developer.
PaulHoule 10y ago
The boom was more broad based, I identified it when I looked at the Delia's catalog circa 1996 and noticed Cornell students were dressing better, skirts were getting shorter, competition for mates was intensifying. Money was in the air. The NASDAQ 100 was crazy high, P/E ratios were about 2x what they are now (now we are at the high end of normal and the low end of bubble). Public participation in the stock market was high, I called the top and pulled 50% of my money out of the market in December 1999 because I watched a football game and saw all the ads were for stocks and bonds, not beer. I took the rest out in April 2000. Today CNBC ratings set a new low almost every month. In March 2000 my broker got me stock in PALM at the IPO and it popped 4 times. Now tech IPOs like FB and SNAP typically drop on the first day. Nobody cares about the public markets, but Theranos was a canary in the coal mine, other private companies like magic leap and Uber may be the next dominoes to fall. Back in the day it was Enron, lucent, WorldCom, all public companies. My hope is that when the Bay area bubble pops it won't hurt the rest of the country much because it doesn't spread the wealth around.

6 points by justinzollars 10y ago

I feel like we are in boom times but the fundamentals are bad. I see a lot of Greed and some bad things as a result: fake news, click-bait etc. How did 1999 feel? Did it feel different than now?

nostrademons 10y ago

No way. 1999 was full of optimism; you'd go see (non-technical) friends over dinner and they'd talk about how they were suddenly rich because they'd invested in dot-coms. Even if you were more prudent and hadn't put your net worth into tech stocks, you still enjoyed the benefits of delivery startups offering below-market prices because of VC subsidies, advertising startups that paid you to browse the web, and this huge wealth of information that was just beginning to be explored. Broadband and streaming video had just been introduced, and available bandwidth was increasing by an order of magnitude roughly every 2 years, with prices remaining about the same. Computers were also still doubling in speed & hard disk capacity every 2 years. Oh, and everybody had jobs: the dot-com boom startups tended to hire rabidly (across the country, too, not just in Silicon Valley), which created a labor shortage and pushed up wages. If I had to equate it to a recent year, I'd say early 2014. I'd say that today feels much more like 2002 or early 2010. In other words, we're in a bust, at least in the tech industry. You see a lot of greed because we're in the hangover from a boom, where all the malfeasance that was papered over when stock prices were going up comes to light - in boom times, everybody just assumes that it's the natural order of things for everything to go up. The technology world also fixates on many of the same things that were common in 2002-2003. There's the same concern about computer security - in 2003 the web just basically broke, Microsoft had a complete monopoly on both browser and OS and every month there was a new worm that spread across the Internet. There's the same interest in P2P and decentralized alternatives which comes from people not trusting centralized institutions or corporations. There's also a resurgence in interest in programming languages and system software, which comes because when people aren't getting rich off software, the MBAs all go away and you're left with the hardcore techies. Big differences from the 99-03 cycle: there's an oligopoly (ApAmaGooBook) of major tech companies rather than a monopoly (Microsoft). Markets are bigger: Paul Graham is a celebrity for selling his company for $40M, but that wouldn't even register today, a hot startup isn't hot unless it's worth at least $1B. Most of the wealth is private; SOX killed the IPO market, so ordinary people can't get rich off startups but aren't wiped out either. It's also more geographically concentrated in the Bay Area: the first dot-com boom actually created a lot of companies throughout the country, but the privatization of growth capital means that growth industries now only happen in major cities. The barriers to entry to getting into the industry are higher: I started writing websites as a high-school student, but now you need to know Babel/ES6/React/Webpack/Node/etc. just to get started as a frontend developer.

PaulHoule 10y ago

The boom was more broad based, I identified it when I looked at the Delia's catalog circa 1996 and noticed Cornell students were dressing better, skirts were getting shorter, competition for mates was intensifying. Money was in the air. The NASDAQ 100 was crazy high, P/E ratios were about 2x what they are now (now we are at the high end of normal and the low end of bubble). Public participation in the stock market was high, I called the top and pulled 50% of my money out of the market in December 1999 because I watched a football game and saw all the ads were for stocks and bonds, not beer. I took the rest out in April 2000. Today CNBC ratings set a new low almost every month. In March 2000 my broker got me stock in PALM at the IPO and it popped 4 times. Now tech IPOs like FB and SNAP typically drop on the first day. Nobody cares about the public markets, but Theranos was a canary in the coal mine, other private companies like magic leap and Uber may be the next dominoes to fall. Back in the day it was Enron, lucent, WorldCom, all public companies. My hope is that when the Bay area bubble pops it won't hurt the rest of the country much because it doesn't spread the wealth around.