That one hit me hard. I had just quit my job from a prestigious company the previous year to pursue my dream with two friends of building an internet related company and just a few months after we launched the market tanked. And it tanked so hard that we practically went out of business a year later. The problem was that the web back then was so fragile as a business case that once the bubble burst a lot of companies lost interest in investing in it.
It was the first boom-and-bust experience for me. I got laid off from a startup that folded after the bust. That made me risk-averse and a skeptic. The housing bust of 2008 had a completely different flavor and character unlike dot-com. And, a startup I worked at folded in 2009 as well.
Since then, we have not seen a tech related recession - although, there have been ups and downs. As a result the current crop of engineers dont have a visceral experience of what happens in a tech related recession.
