The Dot-Com Crash

2000 CE — North America, United States

Today: The United States (Silicon Valley)

As the internet arrived, investors poured money into any company with '.com' in its name, bidding valuations to dizzying heights untethered from profits — until the bubble burst and trillions in paper wealth evaporated. The technology was real and world-changing; the frenzy around it was the oldest story there is. It was a brand-new invention wrapped in an ancient human pattern: the tulip-and-South-Sea curve, repainted in fiber optic.

Worth knowing: At the peak, a company could add hundreds of millions to its value just by tacking '.com' onto its name — and one startup burned through a fortune promising one-hour grocery delivery, a lesson relearned, expensively, twenty years later.

Pattern: Mania & panic — A speculative belief detaches asset prices from fundamentals; the belief breaks and prices collapse.

Entry 236 of 240 in Precedent, a walk through the whole human story in order.