Comment by lsc
12 years ago
>Tech computers and internet going mainstream is exactly what we all aimed to do.
Do you remember the first dot-com boom? In 1999, it sure seemed like we were going mainstream. Nerds were cool!
Of course, once the money stopped, we were thrown aside like a sticky sock.
I was a) too young and b) too sheltered from it we were only just getting consumer dial up in homes about that time in our country. But as i understand it yes although that was more like a gold rush in peoples living rooms. Unlike what we have today, a multibillion dollar industry walking around in peoples pockets every minute of the day. Dont gete wrong the desktop isnt going anywhere soon we just have a new poster child while the old one has mostly sorted all its teething problems out.
>a multibillion dollar industry walking around in peoples pockets every minute of the day.
- you are speaking of popularizing and monetizing the internet on mobile devices.
In the last dot-com, we were popularizing and monetizing the internet on desktops.
To someone that has lived through both? it looks pretty similar. Lots of dumb ideas that will crater, and a few good ones that will endure. (Of course, it's difficult to tell the difference now... but it will be clear once this business cycle turns downward.)
So yeah. Right now? there's a lot of investment hype (and thus a lot of media hype -- follow the money.) focusing on the folks who write software for the internet (or the internet on cellphones, now.)
Once the money falls back to 'normal' levels? yeah, the media will forget about us. We'll go back to being creepy nerds. After the first dot-com crash, there were a bunch of stories about nerds who became temporarily rich and blew their fortunes on stupid garbage. I think it was a lot like the schadenfreude of focusing on sports stars who ended up blowing their giant gains on fancy houses and cars that forced them into bankruptcy a few years later.
As a youngster? the takeaway should be "I don't know when this will end, but it probably won't last forever."
You need to get good experience while the getting is good. I used the first dot-com to work with some really great people; I still brag about stuff I did when I was 17.
Oh boy, the employment situation after the first dot-com crash? it was terrible. I mean, I was able to fight my way into the top 25% (and was able to exploit some connections) so I stayed employed... but as late as 2004, I was able to hire people I had worked with before; people that weren't worse than I was in 1998, for retail wages. I found one guy I had worked with making sandwiches at a deli. "I can't pay you what you're worth, but I can beat the deli." - this was less than a two hour train ride from silicon valley. And the guy really wasn't bad. Sometime around 2007-2008 he took over one of my (reasonably paying, by silicon valley standards) jobs and did pretty great. He's been fully employed at rates similar to what I would get working for other people since.
While I initially agree with you and can understand your view point based on your previous experience, I think there are two categories of tech: -Business Value Add -Hype / Marketing
I separate these out because we've already gone through a terrible economic downturn that is sputtering to produce jobs and yet we see an explosion of jobs in the tech sector. That's because of the value add software that is reducing the number of employees, paperwork or steps in a process a business needs in order to operate.
Those types of companies are going to be fine through another economic downturn because their clients have realized how much their saving by using the software. These value add tech businesses may see a slow down, but not a collapse.
The biggest example that is here to stay is E-Commerce. Look at how many companies / businesses are realizing how much easier / cheaper it is to go online than build a brick and mortar store with employees, rent, utilities, taxes, repairs, maintenance, etc.
Even some apps are here to stay. AirBNB, for example, is a personal value add when I'm traveling. I have no problem paying them a couple dollars to reduce my overall travel costs by 15-30%.
What will collapse almost overnight are the apps, websites, etc that are simply fluffy websites, marketing materials, or buggy unusable software.
My thought is stick with the people helping other people make or save money, and you'll be safe through the next one.
2 replies →
The most obvious sign that the money sloshing around in the Valley is bubble froth is the number of people saying "this time it's different."
It's never different.
1 reply →