Why The Bust Wasn't So Bad

from the looks-good-from-here dept

Here's an opinion piece from Wired Magazine saying that, after all the doom and gloom talk about how terrible the dot com bubble (and subsequent bust) have been, it still created a bunch of very valuable things that have made the overall world a better place. The writer quotes Andy Grove saying, "the dotcoms threw themselves on the bonfire, but they created a bigger flame as a result." So, while plenty of paper profits may have been erased, the overall social impact of the dot com bubble was still a net positive.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    David, 4 Apr 2003 @ 9:11am

    the bubble was good? bullshit

    The bubble was not good.
    It was bad three ways.
    1) It wasted hundreds of billions of dollars -- so much for efficient capital markets;
    2) It blew the credibility of the financial system and the institutions that are supposed to aggregate capital and dispensse it efficiency: pension funds, wall street, vcs;
    3) It has a lot of talented people not working, when there are porojects they could be doing that can't be funded.
    Let's not lie to ourselves. We screwed-up. At leasxt nobody got killed.

    David

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Rick Colosimo, 4 Apr 2003 @ 6:32pm

      Money never goes away - it just changes hands

      The money you say was wasted really just changed hands. Advertising agencies and marketing companies made a lot of money on all those ads. Recruiters and employees made money from the tight labor market. Some investors bought low and sold high; they made money from the folks who bought high. Even some of the money made by investment banks has worked its way back to state coffers.

      Unless there was actual destruction of real goods, I think you'd be hard-pressed to come up with an example of money "lost."

      As to point #2, maybe the bubble revealed the credibility of the financial system, and people might once again pay attention to how they invest their money. After all, it had been 80 years since everyone got royally burned (although the Nifty 50 didn't pan out so well, either).

      Point 3: if the projects can't (and "won't" is more precise) be funded, it must be because they're not considered profitable or worthwhile by those who you expect to put up the money. There are deals getting done in Silicon Valley, even if they're fewer than back in '99.

      link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.