5 ms·

I was there in 2000, and we all thought those tech companies were real businesses! Most of today’s tech companies don't really look all that much different.

bshipp 4y ago
I read this line and wondered what really has changed in the past 20 years? "In 2000, the Nasdaq superheated due to the large number of companies that skyrocketed into the public markets fueled by fanciful metrics disengaged from revenue." Interest rates have been held around zero since almost the dot com crash and certainly since 2008. No wonder VCs were given gobs of cash to try and eek out a better market return. The injection of cash on Wall Street resulted in huge amounts ending up in the stock market, perpetuating those returns once they went public and encouraging more VC activity. Is there any realistic forecasted revenue stream that justifies the valuations of some of these companies? Some good companies and good prospects are going to get lost when this monetary bubble bursts. It's a shame, but inevitable considering how long the Fed has been holding their finger on the scale.
- upupandup 4y ago
  it's also interesting to see the impact of cheap capital on software development trends. for instance to reproduce the same SEO server-rendered site we had pre-2008, we have increase in complexity and costs. Applications and websites that should be more than fine to be rendered on MVC frameworks are now sending several megabytes of javascript down the wire, as a result our devices have more memories, more computing power, thereby consuming more energy than ever before contributing to the growing global warming crisis that we are only beginning to witness now. Coupled with lobbying for not regulating personal data in databases connected to the internet thereby allowing a select few giants to essentially act both as cartels to monopolize the arbitrage of the data of everyone on earth. The labor market are also controlled as a result of this monopoly, it feels like the best version of state sanctioned businesses: self-sufficient on its own while gathering data on everyone as the price of privacy is artifically suppressed.
excitom 4y ago
pets.com, webvan, drkoop, kozmo, garden.com ... ah, the memories.
- chromaton 4y ago
  A lot of them were just early. pets.com => Chewy. Also PetSmart operates the pets.com domain now apparently. webvan => Amazon Fresh, Instacart kozmo => DoorDash, Uber Eats, etc.
  - dinvlad 4y ago
    Mind => blown. There are very few original ideas, it seems. Just slightly better execution maybe.
    - kirse 4y ago
      Mobile devices, ubiquitous 4G comms, GPS location-based services. Underlying tech is always what enables "too early" products to succeed later on, particularly comms bandwidth. The same fundamental products have been reinvented with every improvement in bandwidth since the beginning of the internet. Once you've seen these cycles happen over and over you just watch for the underlying tech improvements, pick an idea lane and re-execute. Keep an eye on 5G and Starlink, it's already happening.
geoffjentry 4y ago
Not only that, but it wasn't even the largest issue. People point at pimentoloaf.com or whatever and laugh. But when those companies went under, they took away real dollars from "real" B2B companies. And then when those companies went under, "real" companies who depended on them went under. And so on.
powerhour 4y ago
I was there too and I remember a distinct malaise about pointless tech companies that would make up for per customer losses with scale. There were a lot of companies whose only product was eyeballs for advertisers. (Ok, that part is the same.)

bshipp 4y ago

I read this line and wondered what really has changed in the past 20 years? "In 2000, the Nasdaq superheated due to the large number of companies that skyrocketed into the public markets fueled by fanciful metrics disengaged from revenue." Interest rates have been held around zero since almost the dot com crash and certainly since 2008. No wonder VCs were given gobs of cash to try and eek out a better market return. The injection of cash on Wall Street resulted in huge amounts ending up in the stock market, perpetuating those returns once they went public and encouraging more VC activity. Is there any realistic forecasted revenue stream that justifies the valuations of some of these companies? Some good companies and good prospects are going to get lost when this monetary bubble bursts. It's a shame, but inevitable considering how long the Fed has been holding their finger on the scale.

upupandup 4y ago
it's also interesting to see the impact of cheap capital on software development trends. for instance to reproduce the same SEO server-rendered site we had pre-2008, we have increase in complexity and costs. Applications and websites that should be more than fine to be rendered on MVC frameworks are now sending several megabytes of javascript down the wire, as a result our devices have more memories, more computing power, thereby consuming more energy than ever before contributing to the growing global warming crisis that we are only beginning to witness now. Coupled with lobbying for not regulating personal data in databases connected to the internet thereby allowing a select few giants to essentially act both as cartels to monopolize the arbitrage of the data of everyone on earth. The labor market are also controlled as a result of this monopoly, it feels like the best version of state sanctioned businesses: self-sufficient on its own while gathering data on everyone as the price of privacy is artifically suppressed.

excitom 4y ago

pets.com, webvan, drkoop, kozmo, garden.com ... ah, the memories.

chromaton 4y ago
A lot of them were just early. pets.com => Chewy. Also PetSmart operates the pets.com domain now apparently. webvan => Amazon Fresh, Instacart kozmo => DoorDash, Uber Eats, etc.
- dinvlad 4y ago
  Mind => blown. There are very few original ideas, it seems. Just slightly better execution maybe.
  - kirse 4y ago
    Mobile devices, ubiquitous 4G comms, GPS location-based services. Underlying tech is always what enables "too early" products to succeed later on, particularly comms bandwidth. The same fundamental products have been reinvented with every improvement in bandwidth since the beginning of the internet. Once you've seen these cycles happen over and over you just watch for the underlying tech improvements, pick an idea lane and re-execute. Keep an eye on 5G and Starlink, it's already happening.

geoffjentry 4y ago

Not only that, but it wasn't even the largest issue. People point at pimentoloaf.com or whatever and laugh. But when those companies went under, they took away real dollars from "real" B2B companies. And then when those companies went under, "real" companies who depended on them went under. And so on.

powerhour 4y ago

I was there too and I remember a distinct malaise about pointless tech companies that would make up for per customer losses with scale. There were a lot of companies whose only product was eyeballs for advertisers. (Ok, that part is the same.)