As Žižek teaches us: "History happens first as tragedy, then as farce". After the DotCom crash -- never mind the evaporating stock options; a lot of people got

As Žižek teaches us: "History happens first as tragedy, then as farce". After the DotCom crash -- never mind the evaporating stock options; a lot of people got hit hard by the layoffs, and base salaries weren't nearly as above-median as they are now. And when they got thrown out on the street, a lot of people were out of work for a long time, and some dropped out of the industry altogether (at least for a year or two). Also, even if they didn't necessarily believe they were on a "rocket ship" (that term didn't actually come into much later), the general belief at the time was that tech was "fun" and "cool" and somehow ... different from the regular corporate grind. So when the inevitable correction came -- it was a genuinely bruising experience, both financially and psychologically for a lot of people. As for whatever corrections is coming our way for the current boom ... I think the difference now is that people are a lot more skeptical and detached -- both from the knowledge of what happened after the last boom, and from just being fatigued with tech in general. So I get these sense that people are (1) more or less expecting a correction to happen, and (2) are thinking "Whatever, F-it, I was just in it for the unreasonably fat paycheck (earned while sitting around in my underwear most of the day) anyway". Except all the people who went long on crypto (long after they missed the party, and everyone else got rich). For them it's their first honeymoon, and some of them are going to be seriously upset and confused when they don't get their life savings back. "But Matt Damon said ..." That's my hunch anyway. But what do I know.