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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette

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Speaker 1: and I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: Sitting across from me as senior writer Jonathan Strickland. The

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Speaker 1: point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of

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Speaker 1: a better word, is good. Oh I think I know

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Speaker 1: where that one came from. Yeah, we are going to

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Speaker 1: tackle a subject that a lot of listeners have asked

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Speaker 1: us to talk about, both on Facebook and an email,

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Speaker 1: possibly on Twitter as well. But we've received many requests

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Speaker 1: to talk about the dot com bubble and crash of

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Speaker 1: two thousand, two thousand one. And it's an interesting story

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Speaker 1: and it's certainly has some lessons that we can learn, uh,

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Speaker 1: particularly with certain companies that are operating right now. That's

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Speaker 1: that's absolutely true. Um. I have the occasion to work

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Speaker 1: in technology during the dot com bubble years um, and

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Speaker 1: it was a crazy ride. Yeah, it was very exciting

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Speaker 1: time for a while, and then it was a very

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Speaker 1: terrifying time. But uh, but to build into this, we

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Speaker 1: should really kind of give you a a bird's eye

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Speaker 1: view of what was going on at the time. So

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Speaker 1: the World Wide Web really started to make penetration into

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Speaker 1: the public in ninety three or so. Yeah, it's funny

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Speaker 1: because a lot of people, I think still really have

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Speaker 1: no idea that the Internet, uh was born decades really

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Speaker 1: before before you know, we were all using the web

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Speaker 1: for you know, keeping up with everyone and and you know,

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Speaker 1: communications of different kinds. Um. But yeah, I mean that

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Speaker 1: once the Web arrived on the scene, that enabled a

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Speaker 1: lot of people to do things that with computers that

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Speaker 1: they wouldn't necessarily have done. So I remember it's funny

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Speaker 1: because I was thinking about this on my way into

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Speaker 1: the studio this morning. There was a game show I

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Speaker 1: was watching, um and uh, I think it was Alan

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Speaker 1: Ludden who was hosting it is one of the older

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Speaker 1: shows on Game Show Network, and one of the prizes

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Speaker 1: was a home computer. This was in the probably late

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighties when this was the show is from. And

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Speaker 1: he's he's like, okay, well, if you want to I'm

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Speaker 1: paraphrasing because it's been so along, but you've won a

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Speaker 1: personal home computer. Although I don't know what you would

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Speaker 1: do with something like which cracks me up now because

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Speaker 1: the Internet and especially the Web, has made it possible

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Speaker 1: to do so many different kinds of things like online

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Speaker 1: banking and watching uh shows and and keeping up with

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Speaker 1: calendars and reading the news and kinds of friends. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but we we didn't do that before. And once the

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Speaker 1: web came around, people started going, wait, I know you

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Speaker 1: could make up you know, fill in the blank here,

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Speaker 1: and there wasn't one already. You didn't say, you know,

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Speaker 1: I could make an online banking site. Oh no, you know,

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Speaker 1: the giant World Bank has already done that. Well, I

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Speaker 1: maybe I could come up with a way to network

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Speaker 1: with my friends. Now there's already a Facebook. These these

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Speaker 1: people were creating these things from scratch and it was

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Speaker 1: a really heady time because everybody wanted to be the

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Speaker 1: first in and make loads of money from doing this,

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Speaker 1: although they didn't really necessarily know how, right, I I

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Speaker 1: equate the early days of the web, and really, even

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Speaker 1: though ninety three was when the public started getting hold

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Speaker 1: of the web, is when businesses started to really look

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Speaker 1: at how can we use this as a way to

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Speaker 1: make money? Or not just business is looking into it,

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Speaker 1: but people looking into it thinking how can I form

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Speaker 1: a business that uses the web as a platform. Uh,

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Speaker 1: But I equate it to a land grab Like like,

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Speaker 1: imagine that you have come to a new country and

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Speaker 1: there's a huge territory that is open and it has

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Speaker 1: a set amount of of land that's available for a

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Speaker 1: set price, right, and there are and it's divided up

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Speaker 1: into certain sections, and then essentially on a certain day

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Speaker 1: you are allowed to go and stake your claim. You

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Speaker 1: would actually go and you would stake your claim, put it,

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Speaker 1: you know, say this land is what I'm purchasing and

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Speaker 1: that would become yours. And you know there's risk involved

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Speaker 1: in that because you might you might go and grab

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Speaker 1: land and then find out that you thought that maybe

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Speaker 1: there'd be a good place to dig a well and

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Speaker 1: it turns out there is no good place to dig

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Speaker 1: a well on that land. Or you know, you thought

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Speaker 1: that the land that the section you grabbed was gonna

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Speaker 1: be great for farming, and then you realize, oh wait,

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Speaker 1: this is really rocky ground that's not going to be

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Speaker 1: easy to farm at all. Same sort of thing with

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Speaker 1: the web, really is this idea of this this this

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Speaker 1: frontier that have been mostly unoccupied, especially from a business perspective,

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Speaker 1: and it gave people the idea that anything is possible,

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Speaker 1: and as long as I have a good idea, I

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Speaker 1: can build up a customer base. And once I build

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Speaker 1: up my customer base, I can find a way to

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Speaker 1: make money from them. That was kind of the problem

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Speaker 1: was that they first thought, I need to get people,

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Speaker 1: and then I need to figure out how to make

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Speaker 1: money from them. Yep, yep, and I think uh, I

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Speaker 1: think it bears UM bears going into Also the it

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Speaker 1: wasn't just the tech sector. People within the tech sector

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Speaker 1: who were excited about this UM In the mid nineties,

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Speaker 1: that's when people started getting really excited about UH internet

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Speaker 1: access and getting home computers so that they could use

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Speaker 1: the Internet at their homes. And once people realize this,

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Speaker 1: they started thinking, you know what, I bet these companies, UH,

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Speaker 1: you know, they might be worth something someday, especially because UM,

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Speaker 1: I think people were saying, hey, you've really got something here.

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Speaker 1: So a lot of these companies would issue UH stock

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Speaker 1: to join the stock market, and UH I was I

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Speaker 1: was looking into this last night as I was doing

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Speaker 1: my research. UH. Andrew Batty wrote an article about bubbles

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Speaker 1: for Investipedia, and UM, I wanted to just give you

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Speaker 1: the definition of a bubble based on on his article. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, he actually wrote about it. A lot of

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Speaker 1: different famous bubbles that have happened, a lot of them

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Speaker 1: in real estate. You know, there are many bubbles, not

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Speaker 1: just this one. But the idea is that people are

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Speaker 1: really excited about a product that is on the stock market,

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Speaker 1: and they're so excited that they keep buying it. They

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Speaker 1: want more stock, as much stock as they can get,

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Speaker 1: and that drives the price at the stock up. And eventually,

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Speaker 1: though the company, the the actual worth of the company

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Speaker 1: can't match what the perceived value is in the stock market,

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Speaker 1: and it keeps inflating and inflating, inflating, And so there's

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Speaker 1: a company might be worth say twenty million dollars, but

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Speaker 1: it has you know, in the stock market, it's far

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Speaker 1: more than that. So eventually hundred million dollars and shares

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Speaker 1: out exactly. And at some point when the company falters,

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Speaker 1: the the bubble can burst. People suddenly realize, oh my gosh,

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Speaker 1: this company is not worth but that much. It's sell

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Speaker 1: their stock exactly. And then you you end up with

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Speaker 1: a company where it's it's yeah, it starts to fall apart. Uh, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the we call this this this whole idea speculation, right.

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Speaker 1: Stock market speculation and speculation is essentially when you bet

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Speaker 1: it's it's usually it's it's um related to short term gains. Yes,

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Speaker 1: you know, you're looking at the stock market momentum, and

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Speaker 1: you're not necessarily a lot of people who were investing

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Speaker 1: weren't necessarily looking into companies they were particularly interested in.

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Speaker 1: They were betting that the company they were investing in

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Speaker 1: was going to explode and that it would either are

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Speaker 1: become wildly successful, in which case you become rich, or

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Speaker 1: we get acquired by a bigger company, in which case

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Speaker 1: you get rich. So it seemed like a no brainer.

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Speaker 1: You know, you just you do. You throw in money

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Speaker 1: and these small companies as soon as they become available,

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Speaker 1: and then you just watch your your cash increase. Uh.

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Speaker 1: But the problem is that when more and more people

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Speaker 1: get involved in this speculation, it does drive the price up,

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Speaker 1: and it drives it up well beyond the company's worth,

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Speaker 1: like you were saying, And so it's very high risk,

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Speaker 1: it's fast paced. Uh you can you I mean, if

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Speaker 1: you want to indulge in in being a speculator on

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Speaker 1: the stock market, you have the potential to make a

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Speaker 1: lot of money, but you have to you have to

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Speaker 1: be really nimble, and people are not gonna like you

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Speaker 1: because you're you're not investing in a company in order

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Speaker 1: to have that company succeed. You're investing in a company

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Speaker 1: kind of like if you were in Las Vegas and

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Speaker 1: you were making a bet on a poker game right now.

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Speaker 1: Of course, it's not as simple as as coming up

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Speaker 1: with an idea in your bedroom one night, writing it down,

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Speaker 1: sketching it up on a napkin for five five friends,

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Speaker 1: and then starting the company the next day and then

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Speaker 1: becoming rich. There there's many many steps in between. Um.

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Speaker 1: What the piece that we may that you may be

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Speaker 1: missing if you're unfamiliar with a lot of this is

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Speaker 1: the venture capitalists and these are these are people who

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Speaker 1: are our business people looking to make initial investments. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know you have your your five friends with you,

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Speaker 1: you've started your company, but you know you've maxed all

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Speaker 1: of you have maxed out your credit cards trying to

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Speaker 1: get this thing off the ground. And you say, well,

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Speaker 1: you know where am I going to come up with

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Speaker 1: some money? I'm scratching my head but you can't see it. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and a nice visual. Um, So, yeah, what am I

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Speaker 1: gonna do? Well, these venture capitalists might want to talk

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Speaker 1: to you. You might go into the boardroom, meet with

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Speaker 1: the with the people at the firm and say, look,

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Speaker 1: here's our idea. These are the five things you want

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Speaker 1: to accomplish to do it. We figure we're gonna need,

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Speaker 1: you know, fifteen million dollars to really tool up and

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Speaker 1: make this thing a possibility. If you can convince those investors,

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Speaker 1: those initial investors, uh, that you really have a case,

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Speaker 1: they might be willing to give you some money and

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Speaker 1: to to get the company started. So then you could

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Speaker 1: go ahead and rent some office space, get your you know,

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Speaker 1: copier and your computers, and you know, hire a couple

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Speaker 1: of people to help you along. Yeah. Yeah, you've got

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Speaker 1: a lot of overhead costs that you've got to take

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Speaker 1: care of. These these uh initial investments come from these

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Speaker 1: venture capitalists. And I was reading on an article in

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Speaker 1: San Francisco Chronicle by Tom Abate, who um, who did

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Speaker 1: a piece on the dot com bubble, and was saying that, uh,

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Speaker 1: venture capital firms would, uh we're just going nuts funding this.

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Speaker 1: In fact, that one of my supervisors want to work

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Speaker 1: for a tech company left to join an adventure capital firm.

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Speaker 1: We all thought that was really cool, um, which it

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Speaker 1: which it was, But yeah, I mean, but again, this

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Speaker 1: was a no brainer. They were coming up with the

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Speaker 1: greatest ideas fresh off the right out of the UH factory,

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Speaker 1: if you know, um, and they were. He said that.

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Speaker 1: Abate said that venture capitalists in the in two thousand

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Speaker 1: made about eight thousand investments valued at about a hundred

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Speaker 1: point five million dollars um, which doesn't sound like a lot,

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Speaker 1: it's like a hundred million dollars, but you know, that's

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Speaker 1: the money that gets the company off the ground to

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Speaker 1: the point where they can go ahead and raise enough

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Speaker 1: interest from an investment firm to get you a an

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Speaker 1: I p O an initial public offering of stock. That's

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Speaker 1: where the public launch just stuck within that company. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: you start your company, you get some people to to

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Speaker 1: give you some funding to get off the ground, you

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Speaker 1: get moving. Then you go to the big banks and say, hey,

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Speaker 1: if we can launch some stock, I know we're all

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Speaker 1: gonna get rich. And once they do that, and the people,

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Speaker 1: and believe me, there were lots of stock watch pages.

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Speaker 1: People speculated all the time about who was going to

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Speaker 1: have an I p O and and which which new

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Speaker 1: tech company was you know, these guys were any good

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Speaker 1: who where they come from? You know, and people people

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Speaker 1: were following which I p o s were coming in

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Speaker 1: in the weeks and months ahead, so that you could

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Speaker 1: go ahead and buy in on the first day and

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Speaker 1: in a lot of cases the stock which you right

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Speaker 1: up immediately out of the gate. Yeah. Yeah, to the

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Speaker 1: point where if you were not in on it at

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Speaker 1: the very beginning, then yeah, I mean there were still

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Speaker 1: people who were purchasing stock prices even at high points

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Speaker 1: because they were there were you know, the sky was

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Speaker 1: the limit. There was no ceiling as far as anyone

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Speaker 1: can tell for these companies and UM. And one of

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Speaker 1: the risks of venture capital, and I find this interesting,

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Speaker 1: is that there are times where um, a startup company

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Speaker 1: will get more venture capital than it needs to get

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Speaker 1: off the ground. And that's actually a problem. It's not

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Speaker 1: you know, because the company has to figure out what

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Speaker 1: to do with that money. And it may be like,

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Speaker 1: let's say that there's a company that starts up that

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Speaker 1: needs approximately twenty million dollars in venture capital to really start,

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Speaker 1: but they get a hundred million dollars in venture capital.

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Speaker 1: This is what leads to this can lead to bad habits,

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Speaker 1: bad practices, for example, and a lot of these dot

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Speaker 1: com companies fell into this trap where they started spending

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Speaker 1: their venture capital on let's call them luxuries or lavish,

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Speaker 1: lavish settings. Oh yes, because the dot com companies a

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Speaker 1: lot of them in places like Mountain View, California, and

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Speaker 1: San Francisco, San Francisco area, a lot of them. There

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Speaker 1: will look quite a few of them here in Atlanta. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: actually Atlanta had a lot of the dot com crash

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Speaker 1: hurt Atlanta a lot. If you if you want to

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Speaker 1: get an idea what it was like at the heyday,

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Speaker 1: go to how Stuff Works dot com and read Jonathan's

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Speaker 1: article on the Google Plex. Google still has offices very

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Speaker 1: reminiscent of the kinds with the kinds of amenities that

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Speaker 1: you would see in these places. But one of the

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Speaker 1: cool things about the dot commerce was they wanted to

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Speaker 1: attract the best in the brightest, so they would they

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Speaker 1: would load up on these on things like foodsball tables,

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Speaker 1: and arcades. They're trying to hire like like graduate students

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Speaker 1: right out of school, so so schools like m I T.

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Speaker 1: Georgia Tech. I mean, these these te yeah, cal Tech. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: these these schools we were like the seed farms for

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Speaker 1: for these companies. I mean they were going after these

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Speaker 1: these students, sometimes hiring them right off, like out of college.

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Speaker 1: They haven't even graduated. Yes, I I know. People as

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Speaker 1: a matter of fact, you think of that as being

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Speaker 1: a sports phenomenon. Oh well he's not coming back for

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Speaker 1: a senior year because he signed with you know, joined

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Speaker 1: the draft or something. Yeah. They some of these uh

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Speaker 1: tech wizards. You know, we're talking like you know, eighteen

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenty years old, they would get pulled out of college. UM.

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Speaker 1: You know, there there's an incubator, which is what you

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Speaker 1: call a UM an office space where little companies go

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Speaker 1: UM at the Georgia Tech campus that I've been to

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Speaker 1: UM and you see like office after offices. You know

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Speaker 1: there in each office is a little company that's just

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Speaker 1: getting started. UM. They get a little office space and

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Speaker 1: a chance to to to get started on their business.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean if you have this stuff happening

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Speaker 1: right next to the campus, it's easy for them to

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Speaker 1: to do some recruiting and uh and and also the

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Speaker 1: companies that were slightly larger that had had an I

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Speaker 1: p O UM they would lure people in with stock options. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you would get paid in stock options, and since the

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Speaker 1: companies were doing so well, that made you instantly a millionaire.

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Speaker 1: That's not a joke. There were people who were joining

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Speaker 1: companies and essentially overnight being a millionaire. If you were

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Speaker 1: able to consider the stock options as being equivalent to,

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Speaker 1: you know, the their perceived market value at the time. Yes,

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Speaker 1: that's that's correct. And you have to, uh, you have

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Speaker 1: to think about like, well, okay, so what if I

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Speaker 1: join Giant Internet Co. And I, you know, I just

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Speaker 1: come there and they pay me all these millions in

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Speaker 1: stock options and I, you know, buy the stock and leave.

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Speaker 1: I could just be a millionaire. Well know, a lot

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Speaker 1: of these had a vesting period, so you'd have this

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Speaker 1: these options on paper, and you had the right to

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Speaker 1: buy them at a at a low price um or

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Speaker 1: at the price of the data issues. So if you

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Speaker 1: joined the company when the stock was three dollars a

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Speaker 1: share um that you had the right to that that's

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Speaker 1: locked in. But in order to actually get that stock

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Speaker 1: or the right to actually buy the stock, you have

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Speaker 1: to work there for so and so many years. So

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Speaker 1: in two that was four years. You could get your

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Speaker 1: you know you can. You can get your eight thousand

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Speaker 1: shares a stock at three dollars this year. Meanwhile, the

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Speaker 1: stock price had risen to ninety nine dollars a year. Wham,

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Speaker 1: you've got lots and lots of money. But unfortunately did

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Speaker 1: not work out that way, not well for a lot

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Speaker 1: of people, but for some people that did. But that

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Speaker 1: was during the bubble, as the stock prices continued to inflate.

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Speaker 1: And um, you know, because the bubble started forming, like

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Speaker 1: we said in the mid nineties. Uh, and it really

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Speaker 1: reached it's its height in two thousand. Yes, and again

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Speaker 1: from the article in the Chronicle March tenth, two thousand

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Speaker 1: the peak five. This is the NASTAC, one of the

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Speaker 1: stock exchanges here in the United States, a lot of

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Speaker 1: it's not exclusively a tech stock exchange, but there are

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Speaker 1: a lot a lot of tech stocks on there. Um.

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Speaker 1: The NASTAC hit its peak of UM five thousand onety

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Speaker 1: two fifty two UM, and then it virtually overnight crashed.

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Speaker 1: Now um, the low point of the NASDAC was a

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Speaker 1: couple of years later October nine, two thousand two, where

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Speaker 1: it reached one thousand eleven. That's a seventy eight percent

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Speaker 1: drop over two and a half years, two and a

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Speaker 1: half years, seventy eight percent of the value of that

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Speaker 1: of that stock exchange gone. Well, that's because it's because

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Speaker 1: of a lot of things. So a lot of the

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Speaker 1: tech companies delivered on their promises, but all of them did.

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Speaker 1: There let's let's talk about some of the companies that

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Speaker 1: started during this this uh this bubble. There are a

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Speaker 1: few that are still around. There's eBay, which did quite well.

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Speaker 1: There's Amazon, which Amazon followed a pattern that a lot

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Speaker 1: of companies followed. Amazon made it work and most of

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Speaker 1: the other companies did not. And that was the pattern

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Speaker 1: that was kind of talking about earlier, where you try

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Speaker 1: to get as many customers as possible and then you

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Speaker 1: figure out a way to make money from them. Amazon

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Speaker 1: did followed this, get big, get fast, and then make money.

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Speaker 1: So the idea was that, all right, well, we need

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Speaker 1: to hit as many people as possible, because that was

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Speaker 1: the promise of the web. Correct. I mean you think

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Speaker 1: of your average store, all right, your average physical store,

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Speaker 1: physical brick and mortar store. There's a limit to the

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Speaker 1: number of people who can go in and out of

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Speaker 1: that store in a single day. Yes, if you want

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Speaker 1: to know. If you really want to get into uh

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Speaker 1: depth on this, you can read Chris Anderson's article in

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Speaker 1: Wired magazine, The long Tail. He actually did a book

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Speaker 1: on that too that might be available to your local library.

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Speaker 1: But um, but yeah, I mean, Jonathan's right, there's you've

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Speaker 1: got your local store, but you know it's it's also

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Speaker 1: got so much it can carry, so you're limited to

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Speaker 1: the stuff they think they can move. And if you

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Speaker 1: want something that was published fifteen years ago, it may

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Speaker 1: not be on your local store shelves anymore. So you've

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Speaker 1: got a physical limit to how much you can have.

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Speaker 1: You have a physical limit to how many people can

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Speaker 1: visit your regionally based right, So I mean there's gonna

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Speaker 1: be a limit to how far people are willing to

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Speaker 1: travel to get to your store. But on the web,

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Speaker 1: all of those disappear yep, right, because you you can

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Speaker 1: have an unlimited number of people well, assuming your bandwidth

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Speaker 1: can handle it, you can you can have a virtually

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Speaker 1: unlimited number of people visit your store. You can have

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Speaker 1: a virtually limitless inventory because you can always order whatever, Like,

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Speaker 1: if you start selling out something, you can always order

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Speaker 1: from the manufacturer more items of that until that dries

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Speaker 1: up and and there's no regional limit essentially, and then

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Speaker 1: you might be somewhat limited by whatever country you're in.

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Speaker 1: But that's a lot different than being like, if I

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Speaker 1: have a store in Atlanta, Georgia, and that's my only store,

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Speaker 1: then essentially I'm catering to Atlanta. But if I have

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Speaker 1: a website and my my my website is based out

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Speaker 1: of Atlanta, but it goes everywhere, then my customers are

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Speaker 1: the world. That is a phenomenal thing. Yes, Now, I

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Speaker 1: mean you have something else too at your disposal, which

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Speaker 1: is a method of communicating with potential customers. Now you

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Store here in Atlanta, Georgia, Um, well, you've got

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Speaker 1: people where it has spread throughout the state, maybe to

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Speaker 1: uh neighboring states like South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, and Florida.

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Speaker 1: And you know, people buy something here and go home.

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Speaker 1: So you know, five or six people in New York,

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Speaker 1: a couple of people in California know about Jonathan Store.

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Speaker 1: They think it's cool. Maybe he comes out with a

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Speaker 1: mail order catalog and get some more at business or

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Speaker 1: do I maybe I franchise or maybe he franchises. But

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Speaker 1: the thing is the word word of mouth is spreading

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Speaker 1: and there's only so much advertising you're gonna I mean,

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Speaker 1: he's not gonna put TV ads on in Wisconsin because

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Speaker 1: they can't come into the store. They could get a catalog.

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Speaker 1: And you know, of course there are many many success stories,

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Speaker 1: people like seers who managed to make that work. Um,

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Speaker 1: but that that's a painstaking into the Internet makes that

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Speaker 1: so much easier because using search engines you can find

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Speaker 1: It's like, you know, new and used books, where am

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Speaker 1: I going to find? Oh, there's a store called Amazon

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Speaker 1: dot com? What's here? And then you know, Amazon for

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Speaker 1: it's part two, only has to maintain a handful of warehouses.

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Speaker 1: They can put one in the Northeast, they can put

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Speaker 1: one in the Southeast, they could put one in the Midwest.

401
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Speaker 1: They have four or five buildings from which they ship

402
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Speaker 1: stuff in the United States. They keep their overhead low.

403
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Speaker 1: People aren't browsing through and damaging copies, people aren't shoplifting.

404
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Speaker 1: There are many advantages that that the Internet gives a

405
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Speaker 1: store that it wouldn't have. And so e commerce was

406
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Speaker 1: one of the huge things that happened during the dot

407
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Speaker 1: com boom because, um, you know, and it's scared the

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Speaker 1: Willie's out of other stores, I mean Barnes and Nobles, Borders, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, which are big chains here in the United States. Immediately,

410
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Speaker 1: you know, started working on one, probably not immediately, but

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Speaker 1: shortly after. Immediately UM started working on some kind of

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Speaker 1: online strategy. And not everyone has succeeded at that. Yeah. See, Amazon,

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Speaker 1: they got big fast, but they didn't overspend, right, They

414
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Speaker 1: didn't invest in in warehouses they didn't need or technology

415
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Speaker 1: that was superfluous. They were very wise about their spinning

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Speaker 1: choices and that's part of what helped them survive that

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Speaker 1: the eventual crash. Uh. eBay had a very strong community

418
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Speaker 1: at the time. UM still does, but it was a

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Speaker 1: little different because back back then we're talking mainly auction

420
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Speaker 1: based transactions. Now today it's it's changed a little bit, right,

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Speaker 1: It's it's it's closer Amazon than it used to be. UM.

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Speaker 1: And then you had Craigslist that also started during the

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Speaker 1: dot com boom, and that was a different model entirely

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Speaker 1: because that was sort of a it was sort of

425
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Speaker 1: an extension of the old BBS community boards. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well and and and correct me if I'm wrong, but

427
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Speaker 1: both eBay and Craigslist were local, yes, operations until you know,

428
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Speaker 1: word got out and people started saying, hey, I want this,

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Speaker 1: I want to be able to you know, eBay was

430
00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:30,439
Speaker 1: initially designed to be for the San Francisco area, right

431
00:23:30,440 --> 00:23:33,480
Speaker 1: the Bay right, So that's uh, it's it's just funny

432
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:37,199
Speaker 1: how you know, well San Francisco man, you guys with

433
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:41,119
Speaker 1: your little Silicon valley and stuff. Um But there were

434
00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:44,320
Speaker 1: other other big sites that also started in the in

435
00:23:44,440 --> 00:23:48,480
Speaker 1: the in the boom that didn't ultimately do so well,

436
00:23:48,520 --> 00:23:52,960
Speaker 1: like geo cities Cities. Geo Cities actually got so big

437
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:57,080
Speaker 1: that um, Yahoo decided to purchase them in for an

438
00:23:57,280 --> 00:24:01,840
Speaker 1: enormous some three point five seven billion dollars. And where

439
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:05,000
Speaker 1: is geo now anyway, it's gone. Yeah who shut it

440
00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:09,120
Speaker 1: down in two thousand nine. So you know that it

441
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:11,520
Speaker 1: was one of those purchases that at the time it

442
00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:13,840
Speaker 1: seemed like it was a wise decision because everyone was

443
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:16,280
Speaker 1: getting a geo cities account and we saw so many

444
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:23,160
Speaker 1: terrible websites with with looping middies and animated gifts and uh,

445
00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:27,560
Speaker 1: and there was the required under construction image that had

446
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:30,320
Speaker 1: to be on there something. Yeah, usually the guy with

447
00:24:30,320 --> 00:24:32,239
Speaker 1: a shovel or it was a hard hat, or it

448
00:24:32,280 --> 00:24:34,800
Speaker 1: was like the tape. But yeah, there was always an

449
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:37,040
Speaker 1: under construction. And guys, just so you know, if you're

450
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:39,199
Speaker 1: building your first website, I know all of you know this.

451
00:24:39,760 --> 00:24:43,720
Speaker 1: We understand it's under construction. The web is a fluid thing,

452
00:24:43,960 --> 00:24:46,159
Speaker 1: so you don't need to tell us it's always going

453
00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:49,680
Speaker 1: to be changing. But um also A O L at

454
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:52,400
Speaker 1: that time, this is how big these companies were getting. Okay,

455
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:56,000
Speaker 1: so during this this boom, a O L A a

456
00:24:56,119 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 1: web based company now grant. They had started off with

457
00:24:58,840 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 1: sort of there were no spahns, an online service provider,

458
00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 1: so they weren't they weren't part of the internet. You

459
00:25:05,359 --> 00:25:08,199
Speaker 1: dialed directly into that. They did a podcast. Yeah, they

460
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:12,320
Speaker 1: were their own network. But then they of course transition

461
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:16,000
Speaker 1: to the internet. When the web started to take off,

462
00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:21,439
Speaker 1: A O L acquired Time Warner. This was a huge story,

463
00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:24,800
Speaker 1: still is actually because now it's looked at as one

464
00:25:24,840 --> 00:25:29,680
Speaker 1: of the worst business decisions of all time. For now anyway, Yeah,

465
00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 1: I'm sure someone else will do something even more but crazy,

466
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:35,440
Speaker 1: but at any rates, one of those where in retrospect,

467
00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:37,480
Speaker 1: it was one of those things where just because the

468
00:25:37,520 --> 00:25:41,959
Speaker 1: company can do something, maybe they shouldn't. It might not

469
00:25:42,119 --> 00:25:45,600
Speaker 1: need to so, but there were other ones like pets

470
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:48,800
Speaker 1: dot Com. Oh, pets dot com was was one of those.

471
00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:52,400
Speaker 1: There were there were many, Uh, there are many of

472
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:57,040
Speaker 1: these startups that became big and you can look back

473
00:25:57,080 --> 00:26:00,720
Speaker 1: on them now and go, what on earth were they thinking?

474
00:26:01,240 --> 00:26:04,040
Speaker 1: But pets dot Com was not one of them. It

475
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:09,040
Speaker 1: was an online uh pet retailer, so I mean not

476
00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:12,840
Speaker 1: not pets but pet supplies and uh their commercials were

477
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:16,200
Speaker 1: very famous because they had a talking hand puppet dog

478
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:19,480
Speaker 1: with a microphone. Um he he actually went on to

479
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:23,879
Speaker 1: work for someone else. But pets dot Com, uh, you know,

480
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:26,040
Speaker 1: just did not did not end up working out. And

481
00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:29,560
Speaker 1: of course the major uh pet um stores in the

482
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:32,479
Speaker 1: United States here all have an online presence sort of

483
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:35,360
Speaker 1: like pets dot Com. But at the time, I guess

484
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:37,520
Speaker 1: we weren't ready for it. Yeah, I can tell you

485
00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:40,200
Speaker 1: if you want to hear about some big companies. That

486
00:26:40,280 --> 00:26:43,399
Speaker 1: are some companies that made big news in in in

487
00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 1: the world of failure. Uh boo dot com is hard

488
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:49,160
Speaker 1: to beat. You boot dot com. Of course, if you're

489
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 1: in the United States, you're gonna be going. I'm not

490
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:52,560
Speaker 1: sure I've heard of them. But in the United Kingdom,

491
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:58,040
Speaker 1: I bet you have Boo dot com fashion clothing supplier

492
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:03,120
Speaker 1: of website so Boo dot Com spent over a hundred

493
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 1: million dollars. The company spent over a hundred million dollars

494
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:10,399
Speaker 1: before ever offering a single article of clothing for sale

495
00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:14,560
Speaker 1: on its site. Also, they decided to push the envelope

496
00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:18,000
Speaker 1: and be really uh cutting edge with their tech. So

497
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:22,879
Speaker 1: there was an animated personal assistant, a sales assistant who

498
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:25,439
Speaker 1: would help you on the site so that you have

499
00:27:25,480 --> 00:27:29,440
Speaker 1: this animated character. The problem was, at this time, in

500
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:32,760
Speaker 1: the late nineties early two thousand's, uh, people were still

501
00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 1: using dial up. You know, the broadband was not an option,

502
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:40,159
Speaker 1: and so using something as as broadband intense, as an

503
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:44,040
Speaker 1: animated character to deliver your your product or to deliver

504
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 1: the experience to the consumer, meant that it was even

505
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 1: harder to get there and to experience it. So in

506
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 1: its brief life, it's sold just a few hundred thousand

507
00:27:55,880 --> 00:28:02,000
Speaker 1: dollars worth of clothing to around three and customers, and

508
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:05,600
Speaker 1: its spent over in six months, spent a hundred and

509
00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:10,719
Speaker 1: eighty eight million dollars. So you know that that's like

510
00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:13,119
Speaker 1: the classic story of the dot com crash, right, a

511
00:28:13,119 --> 00:28:17,600
Speaker 1: company that just balloons beyond its its capacity to deliver

512
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 1: upon the promises, and then burns through way too much

513
00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:24,800
Speaker 1: money buying things that are not core to the business.

514
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:27,600
Speaker 1: And then as a result, once everyone says, hey, well

515
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 1: we'll wait a minute, maybe we're getting maybe we're overreacting,

516
00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:35,320
Speaker 1: maybe we're overvaluing these companies, it crashed hard. Another one

517
00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:39,720
Speaker 1: that I was very sad to see go was web Van. Yes, now,

518
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 1: for a while, uh there were a couple of competing

519
00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 1: UH stores, at least here in Atlanta, I know there

520
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:47,680
Speaker 1: were there were others in other parts of the country.

521
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:52,360
Speaker 1: Web Van, I believe was at least semi national here. Yeah,

522
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:55,920
Speaker 1: it was in several cities across the country. It was

523
00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:58,719
Speaker 1: not it wasn't nationwide or anything, but there were there

524
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 1: were like eight or nine at ease, and it was

525
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 1: a good spread across the country. Yeah. And the idea

526
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:07,560
Speaker 1: was you would order your groceries online on the website

527
00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 1: and someone would deliver them to your house within a

528
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:13,240
Speaker 1: thirty minute window. You would tell them like, you would

529
00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:15,640
Speaker 1: tell them approximately what time you would be home, and

530
00:29:15,680 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 1: within thirty minutes of that time you should receive the delivery. So, actually,

531
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:27,480
Speaker 1: I don't know anybody who tried web van, or I

532
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 1: would just let me finish, go ahead, or I believe

533
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:32,760
Speaker 1: the other in here in Atlanta was a home grocer,

534
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:35,640
Speaker 1: might have been. I don't know. I was a webvan customer.

535
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:39,040
Speaker 1: I don't know anybody here in Atlanta who tried those

536
00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:43,760
Speaker 1: services and didn't love them. Oh my god, I loved them, um,

537
00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:46,800
Speaker 1: And I think virtually everything else I've read online about

538
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:52,560
Speaker 1: them was not positive, extremely positive. The problem was that

539
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: they were suffering from poor adoption. People didn't I don't

540
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:02,160
Speaker 1: know that they didn't necessarily know what these companies were,

541
00:30:02,160 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 1: but they they in a way, it's kind of a

542
00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:08,440
Speaker 1: throwback to old style services, like you know, the milkman

543
00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:12,880
Speaker 1: delivering these things to your house. Maybe they considered it antiquated,

544
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 1: but for whatever reason, UM, none of them really took off.

545
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:20,320
Speaker 1: The Florida Grocer Publics was also considering a move into

546
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 1: that and and abandoned that. Um. There are some places

547
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:27,880
Speaker 1: where there are services like that. I have slowly crept

548
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:30,760
Speaker 1: back in Peapod for a while was sort of making

549
00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 1: a niche. And and you may you may have heard

550
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:37,440
Speaker 1: of things in your in your area Community supported Agriculture

551
00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:40,560
Speaker 1: c s a S. Yes, these are are farms that

552
00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:45,640
Speaker 1: sell a certain a certain amount of produce that's produced.

553
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:48,080
Speaker 1: Usually there's some sort of collective involved, and you might

554
00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:50,840
Speaker 1: pay a weekly fee and you get a delivery of

555
00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 1: produce sent to you. So that's kind of similar, but

556
00:30:54,440 --> 00:30:57,360
Speaker 1: it's on a much more regional, like a very local base,

557
00:30:57,400 --> 00:31:00,280
Speaker 1: as opposed to national. One of the things Web did,

558
00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 1: besides the fact of a poor adoption that that led

559
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:05,520
Speaker 1: to its downfall, was it spent a lot of money

560
00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:10,320
Speaker 1: to It spent over a billion dollars on warehouses, and

561
00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:13,200
Speaker 1: it's spent it spent faster than it could bring in money,

562
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:16,320
Speaker 1: and so once confidence began to waiver in the tech

563
00:31:16,360 --> 00:31:19,440
Speaker 1: market overall, there was no way it could cover its costs,

564
00:31:19,440 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 1: and thus it went bankrupt and around two thousand one,

565
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 1: and actually several companies did go bankrupt around that time,

566
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 1: the two thousand two two period, because that's what was happening.

567
00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:32,560
Speaker 1: Uh As you know, the people started to realize very

568
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:36,040
Speaker 1: quickly in two thousand that the companies they had been

569
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 1: investing in they had overvalued. There was there was no

570
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:43,320
Speaker 1: way that any company could deliver on that that potential

571
00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 1: at that stage in its life, and as a result,

572
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:49,360
Speaker 1: people began to abandon in droves, and there were other

573
00:31:49,400 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 1: reasons that contributed to people getting out of the market.

574
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:56,320
Speaker 1: Interest rates were going up. It's actually a really complex story,

575
00:31:56,360 --> 00:31:59,240
Speaker 1: and there have been books written about this, but in general,

576
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 1: what happened was people abandoned ship and as a result

577
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:05,760
Speaker 1: these companies their value plummeted. So the company that had

578
00:32:05,800 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 1: been worth millions, hundreds of millions of dollars, it's now

579
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 1: effectively worthless. They don't have the money to pay their overhead,

580
00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 1: they can't pay their employees. They had to start laying

581
00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:21,120
Speaker 1: people off. All those stock options that were initially worth

582
00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 1: potentially hundreds of millions of dollars were now you know,

583
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:28,040
Speaker 1: you hear stories about people just like boxes of stock

584
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:31,200
Speaker 1: options or stocks that were worthless that you could have

585
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 1: turned it into you know, uh, packing paper if you

586
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:37,640
Speaker 1: wanted to and um and so if you if you

587
00:32:37,680 --> 00:32:40,160
Speaker 1: didn't cash in at the right time, you were out

588
00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:43,400
Speaker 1: of luck. And as a result, also the job market

589
00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:50,240
Speaker 1: became glutted with tech people, especially like web administrators, I T. Professionals.

590
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:54,760
Speaker 1: You suddenly had an influx of all these tech folks

591
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:57,440
Speaker 1: and not enough jobs because the companies that had been

592
00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 1: supporting them didn't exist anymore. Yeah, and this is you

593
00:33:01,440 --> 00:33:04,560
Speaker 1: know it. It eventually settled out, but not before a

594
00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:06,880
Speaker 1: lot of tech people lost their jobs and a lot

595
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:10,479
Speaker 1: of theoretical money on stock options, and a lot of

596
00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 1: real investors lost a lot of real money on their

597
00:33:13,600 --> 00:33:16,000
Speaker 1: investments too. And of course it's made people very wary,

598
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:19,360
Speaker 1: which is why these days when people like group on

599
00:33:20,400 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 1: are talking about the possibility of an I p O,

600
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:28,360
Speaker 1: people like Facebook, Twitter, Twitter. Twitter is a really good example. Actually, yeah,

601
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:32,160
Speaker 1: Twitter is is particularly uh nerve wracking because if you

602
00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 1: think about the definition of the bubble um, they're people

603
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:39,000
Speaker 1: are excited about it. But Twitter has been sort of

604
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:42,400
Speaker 1: reluctant to give us a business plan that that's publicly

605
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:45,600
Speaker 1: available so that we can see it. So uh, you know,

606
00:33:45,760 --> 00:33:49,800
Speaker 1: a stock might go up. And if the company can't say, oh,

607
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:53,160
Speaker 1: yes we raise this much money through for example, advertising,

608
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 1: you know it it that's what has people talking about

609
00:33:56,920 --> 00:33:59,640
Speaker 1: it again. But I think people in general are more

610
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:02,920
Speaker 1: aware than they were in that and they also have

611
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:05,520
Speaker 1: an idea. People are more tech savvy as a whole

612
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:08,359
Speaker 1: than they were back then when everything seemed like, oh,

613
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:10,680
Speaker 1: that's a really neat idea. Yes, it's a neat idea,

614
00:34:10,719 --> 00:34:13,760
Speaker 1: but you can't put it off. Yeah, you still see stories.

615
00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:15,520
Speaker 1: I mean there are especially a couple of years ago,

616
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 1: before we had the economic downturn again, uh, you heard

617
00:34:18,680 --> 00:34:25,080
Speaker 1: stories about venture capitalists sinking more money into various uh ventures.

618
00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:28,359
Speaker 1: Then you might think is wise. But in a lot

619
00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:31,640
Speaker 1: of cases those panned out not because the companies were successful,

620
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:34,760
Speaker 1: but because some other larger company came along and acquired

621
00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:37,279
Speaker 1: it for quite a bit of money, and then the

622
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:40,120
Speaker 1: investment pays off that way, which I mean, that's another

623
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:44,560
Speaker 1: like you're making a long shot bet. So you might think, oh,

624
00:34:44,640 --> 00:34:49,280
Speaker 1: this little company here that's just starting up needs venture capital.

625
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:53,160
Speaker 1: I don't see it as being particularly successful in any

626
00:34:53,440 --> 00:34:55,160
Speaker 1: way that's going to generate a lot of money, But

627
00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:58,120
Speaker 1: I bet Google is going to buy it. Then you

628
00:34:58,120 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 1: would go and you would invest in the small company

629
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:01,640
Speaker 1: with the hope that Google would come along and munch

630
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:03,839
Speaker 1: it up, and you know, the way things are, you'd

631
00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:07,239
Speaker 1: probably have a seven percent chance of being right. And

632
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 1: that that that's not to say that Google would do

633
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:11,239
Speaker 1: anything with it that would be successful. It just that

634
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:13,640
Speaker 1: seems to be the way it works. Now. I love Google,

635
00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 1: and they have done some wonderful things, but some of

636
00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:21,200
Speaker 1: their purchases have not really worked out Jaiku. Yeah, I

637
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:24,799
Speaker 1: knew you were going to pick them, so so we'll

638
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:26,640
Speaker 1: have to We'll have to see where, because I think

639
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:27,840
Speaker 1: the market is going to be a little bit more

640
00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:30,680
Speaker 1: cautious and if there is a bubble, it won't inflates

641
00:35:30,719 --> 00:35:34,360
Speaker 1: so spectacularly as the last one did. Yeah, probably simply

642
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:38,080
Speaker 1: because it's so close in proximity to the previous one.

643
00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:42,200
Speaker 1: But um, that doesn't mean that people shouldn't try to

644
00:35:42,239 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 1: get some investment and move out there. You know, I

645
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:48,799
Speaker 1: hope to see that that uh, there're more new tech

646
00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:51,040
Speaker 1: companies willing to make the plunge. You know, we definitely

647
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 1: don't want to see innovation suffer, right, but you want

648
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:56,880
Speaker 1: me to make it happen. We just gotta be careful

649
00:35:56,880 --> 00:35:59,880
Speaker 1: because I mean, I can tell you Atlanta suffered, really,

650
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:02,960
Speaker 1: it suffered quite a bit after the dot com crash.

651
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:06,280
Speaker 1: I worked for a company that was not directly related

652
00:36:06,320 --> 00:36:08,879
Speaker 1: to tech, but had a lot of clients that were

653
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 1: tech companies, and once that crash happened, the revenue for

654
00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 1: the company I worked for suffered. So that kind of

655
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:18,840
Speaker 1: thing can happen where even if you aren't directly related

656
00:36:18,880 --> 00:36:21,200
Speaker 1: to it. You feel that impact. And of course I

657
00:36:21,200 --> 00:36:23,440
Speaker 1: was a web band customer, so when webban went belly

658
00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:26,040
Speaker 1: up that I didn't have a car at the time.

659
00:36:26,160 --> 00:36:29,640
Speaker 1: I lived a mile away from the nearest train station,

660
00:36:29,719 --> 00:36:31,000
Speaker 1: and then I'd have to take a train and a

661
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:33,960
Speaker 1: bus to get to the closest market, and then I'd

662
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:37,279
Speaker 1: had to carry all that stuff back. You know. Web

663
00:36:37,320 --> 00:36:40,480
Speaker 1: Ban was exactly what I needed at the time, now,

664
00:36:41,040 --> 00:36:43,560
Speaker 1: you know, so I keep hoping for something like that

665
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:45,319
Speaker 1: to really start to make its way back, even if

666
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:49,480
Speaker 1: it's locally supported as opposed to being a big national chain. Yeah,

667
00:36:49,480 --> 00:36:52,160
Speaker 1: I would imagine that that the failure probably still has

668
00:36:52,239 --> 00:36:54,640
Speaker 1: some people weary, but I think it could succeed given

669
00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:58,360
Speaker 1: the opportunity. All right, Well, that was a great discussion

670
00:36:58,360 --> 00:37:00,480
Speaker 1: on the dot com crash. If you guys have input,

671
00:37:00,560 --> 00:37:03,440
Speaker 1: If you were directly affected or indirectly affected by the

672
00:37:03,480 --> 00:37:05,160
Speaker 1: dot com crash and you want to share your story,

673
00:37:05,239 --> 00:37:08,160
Speaker 1: you certainly can feel free to do so. You can

674
00:37:08,360 --> 00:37:11,520
Speaker 1: shoot us a message on Facebook or Twitter or handle

675
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:14,680
Speaker 1: at both of those is tech stuff h s W.

676
00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:17,600
Speaker 1: Or you can shoot us an email and that address

677
00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:20,960
Speaker 1: is tech stuff at how stuff works dot com and

678
00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 1: Chris and I will talk to you again really soon.

679
00:37:25,080 --> 00:37:27,520
Speaker 1: For moral on this and thousands of other topics, visit

680
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:30,360
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. To learn more about the podcast,

681
00:37:30,560 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 1: click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner

682
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:37,120
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683
00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:44,640
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