One parallel between the dotcom boom and the Great Financial Crisis was a loosening of standards.
e.g. companies were IPO'ing with zero revenue which would have been unheard of a few years earlier.
This is similar to how people could get "NINJA" (no income, no job, application) mortgages a couple years later.
If you can suddenly get money incredibly cheaply and without any kind of track record, is anyone surprised that things got a little nuts?
P.S. There was even a commercial from a few years after the bust where the scene is a boardroom of executives interviewing two obviously nerdy kids. Someone asks "so this powers the Internet?" and the kids respond "uh, it helps part of the internet work better". Cue executive saying "We would be FOOLS to no invest in this" to narrator: "Times have changed."
The other thing I recall tying those two periods together was enthusiasts saying, in the face of an obvious bubble, "Well, things are different this time."
My glib summation of those two events:
- Dotcom boom deregulated (in the social and technological sense as much as the legal) investing (e.g. the rise of day-trading).
e.g. companies were IPO'ing with zero revenue which would have been unheard of a few years earlier.
This is similar to how people could get "NINJA" (no income, no job, application) mortgages a couple years later.
If you can suddenly get money incredibly cheaply and without any kind of track record, is anyone surprised that things got a little nuts?
P.S. There was even a commercial from a few years after the bust where the scene is a boardroom of executives interviewing two obviously nerdy kids. Someone asks "so this powers the Internet?" and the kids respond "uh, it helps part of the internet work better". Cue executive saying "We would be FOOLS to no invest in this" to narrator: "Times have changed."