What was the “dot com bubble”, why is it often compared to recent digital scans and what did it entail?
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The internet really started to take off in the mid-1990s. It literally was like the gold rush or industrial revolution. Lots of new companies sprung up in the process, traditional companies were rapidly creating websites to get online. Netscape was the first major browser available and when their stock went public it skyrocketed. Venture capitalists were throwing money at any company with .com in the name to strike it rich. Some of the internet names you know now, Google, Amazon, Ebay, etc got their start in that period. Amazon originally only sold books. Many tech companies gave out huge stock option grants to employees as compensation, if the company you worked for had an IPO you could bean overnight paper millionaire, or billionaire if you were one of the founders.
Companies opened big offices in Silicon valley. Once that initial funding ran out though, these companies had no real business. plan or income and it all started crashing down. So lots of companies started laying off people and the market tanked. Those paper millionaires suddenly didn’t have any money as the options were worthless. There is no longer pets.com, webvan.com (an early Instacart), etc.
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