I'm 52. I experienced the dot-com bubble very up close. I was in the Raleigh-Durham area for most of it. There were hundreds of startups all over the area.

I'm 52. I experienced the dot-com bubble very up close. I was in the Raleigh-Durham area for most of it. There were hundreds of startups all over the area. Companies like Nortel were booming. IBM was booming. By 2003 it was all gone--Nortel was a shell of its former self, IBM laid off huge numbers of workers. There was suddenly a glut of office space all over. We moved out in 2006, but even around then there was still a glut of office space! I don't know if it ever recovered because it was so overbuilt. I remember having lunch with a guy who was stubbornly holding on to his Nortel stock, which was worth mere pennies by like 2005 or so. They not only lost their jobs, they lost their 401Ks which were all in company stock. Anyways, this guy was sure it was going to bounce back. I saw in like 2008 where Nortel finally closed its doors and the stock was de-listed at $0. His dream was dead. I never worked for equity after that time period. The enormous build out of data centers reminds me of that time period. Yeah, it's all going to collapse.