WEBVTT - What It Felt Like When Everyone Was Hopeful, Happy, and Rich 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:18.400 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:23.759 Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.240 I'm Joe Wisenthal, and I'm Tracy Alloway. 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:28.920 Tracy, where were you in the nineties. 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:32.800 Uh, good question. I was in Chicago for a couple 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.280 of years, like I want to say, ninety ninety one, 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:39.479 and then from like ninety one to ninety four, ninety 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:43.720 five I was in Japan, and then ninety five to 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:45.919 I guess ninety eight or ninety nine I was in Chicago. 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:48.239 I have to say, even though we've been doing this 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:50.639 podcast together in nine years, like, there actually is quite 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:52.199 a bit that I don't know about you, And I 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:53.880 feel like there is a lot of as the kids 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:56.920 say these days, Tracy lore that comes out from time 0:00:56.960 --> 0:00:58.760 to time or the Tracy No, I just. 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:01.400 Walked around a lot and don't remember whenever I tell 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:03.680 you my time periods and locations. 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:06.319 Well, that's also okay, that's okay, that's possible. I also 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:09.920 moved around lot, But I have to say the nineteen nineties. 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:13.120 So this is I'm struggling with this. The nineteen nineties, 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:16.720 particularly the second half of the nineties. I remember it 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:20.399 as a period of a lot of optimism and wealth 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:24.560 and harmony and peace. But the other thing is I 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:27.080 was young and now I'm old, and I'm sort of 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:29.920 trying to reconcile this thing of like, was there was 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:32.720 those Were those really good nostalgia or is it just 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:34.959 personal nostalgia from when I wasn't old. 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:37.600 I mean the answer is it's probably a mix, right, 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:40.080 But you're right, there was something kind of going on 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:43.480 in the late nineteen nineties. Actually, Joe, you'll enjoy this story. 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:46.399 My after school job when I was in Chicago for 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:50.000 a while was taking care of our next door neighbor's 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:55.120 giant aquarium. And he was an early investor, apparently an 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.600 oracle amazing, and he spent all his money on tropical 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:01.520 fish amazing. So for one week it was my job 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:03.400 to go feed the tropical fish, and I would go 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:07.320 every day, and one by one the tropical fish started dying. 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:09.840 Oh by the end of the week there were none left. 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:12.440 And the guy came back and he was like, thanks 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:14.560 for taking care of my fish. And I was so 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:16.280 worried that I was going to get in trouble for 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:20.400 ruining this guy's like multimillion dollar aquarium. But it turns 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:22.920 out he had had it installed like the week before, 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:25.560 and they hadn't got the salt levels and the water 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:26.480 right or something. 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:28.320 So it wasn't my fault. It was up shot. 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:30.240 I thought that was going to be like an allegory 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:32.560 for the dream of the dot com bubble and then 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:34.560 it all collapsing with the fish dying. 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:37.200 But yeah, that's where I'm going with it. That's what 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:37.440 it is. 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:39.720 So here's my memory of the nineties. You know, there 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:42.679 was just it seemed like there weren't many wars happening. 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:45.239 And of course that feeling ended very quickly not long 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.640 after with September eleventh. But the other thing I have 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:51.760 this one summer I got made two thousand dollars from 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:55.320 a summer job and I got into day trading and 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:57.760 I turned it into twenty thousand dollars, which was just 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:00.440 an insane amount of money at the time. And I 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:04.720 had this memory of walking down street somewhere and I 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:08.560 was thinking, Wow, we're rich now. I'm rich now, and 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:10.880 I never thought this should happen. I'm a rich person 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:13.640 and my family is rich because I turned two thousand 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:16.320 dollars into twenty thousand dollars. And so there was that 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:20.960 personal experience in retrospect, twenty thousand dollars not really rich, 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:24.560 but also in retrospect the whole thing wasn't sustainable and durable. 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:28.840 But I do remember this one specific moment feeling life 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:30.120 is really good these days. 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:32.519 So there's two things I would point out other than 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:36.000 the idea that everyone was getting rich. So number one, 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:39.080 it was the time where we were just discovering new 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:43.800 technology without realizing how terrible it actually could be. Ye, 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.280 Like I remember specifically being eleven years old on AOL 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:51.320 chatting on instant messager, probably to adult men, but you know, 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:53.480 we didn't know that back then, and everything was fine. 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.200 Everyone was really relaxed about it. And then the other 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:59.320 thing is there seemed to be like this very the 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:04.400 sense that like humanity could triumph over physical constraints, right, 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:08.000 Like everything was going to be online, everything was going 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:10.840 to be software. We didn't really have to worry any 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:13.880 more about the physical world. And you know, fast forward 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:16.279 to the post twenty twenty years that turned out not 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:17.120 to be true. 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:18.960 You know, not to just keep droning on, but it 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:21.480 was this period between the Cold War in two thousand 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:23.080 and one two and it felt like with the end 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:26.719 of Cold war, Like, okay, the questions of society and 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:29.400 democracy and markets, they've been solid. 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:30.000 By the end of history. 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:31.280 Yeah, you could. Like. 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:34.279 My takeaway from that back then is like, I get 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:35.800 why people got caught up in it. 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:38.240 Anyway, Well, you and I just got caught up in 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:41.000 it because we both went on to do international relations. 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:42.240 That's right at university. 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:42.880 That's right. 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:44.320 It's not a useful degree, not. 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:46.479 A useful degree at all. And I don't know why 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.200 I did. But only twenty years later in retrospect did 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:52.520 I realize why I went and majored in international relations. 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:54.920 And I was like, oh, yeah, because I didn't know 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:58.120 I was living in a moment of history. In retrospect, 0:04:58.160 --> 0:04:59.960 I realized I was living in a moment of hait 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.279 story where people thought multilateralism and all that stuff. 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:05.240 We're all products of our time. 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:07.400 Yes, and in a way it took me many years 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:12.280 to realize. Anyway, these days, there's multiple major wars going 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.800 on in the country. Economic sentiment has been dismal for 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:19.159 a long time. People are less happy than they were, 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:22.839 I believe, despite even accounting for the nostalgia factor. So 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:25.479 let's talk about what it was like when everyone at 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:27.880 least or at least a few of us felt we 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:30.760 were all rich and peaceful and happy in a permanent state. 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:33.279 We have the perfect guest we're going to be speaking with, 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:36.719 Collect Shade. She is the author of the forthcoming book 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:40.880 Why two K, How the two thousands Became Everything? Why 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:43.520 two K is such a perfect stand in because that 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:45.120 was like the one thing we didn't really know what 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:47.280 it was. We thought all the computers were going to 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:51.000 short circuit on January first, two thousand. It's kind of 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:54.480 like an early foreboding symbol in retrospect, Collect that it 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:55.360 wouldn't all last. 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:58.839 Yeah, it wouldn't all last. And actually, just to note 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:01.880 the reason that I picked the phrase Y two K 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:05.360 for the book's main title is because it's the primary 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:09.880 search term that people use on nostalgia fashion resale website 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:13.479 Oho and also on social media, So I thought that 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:14.600 it would be good for my SEO. 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:17.640 Do people actually want Y two k fashion? Because that 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:19.160 worries me a little bit. 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:21.919 Oh, they sure do. I actually just spoke with the 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:24.880 Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago about how 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:26.960 to pull off the best Y two K look and 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:29.600 why it's so challenging and why it's so popular right now. 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:32.280 Oh, I'm I just searched y two K fashion. Oh, 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:35.560 it's bringing back the aesthetics were not that good in 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:37.640 the early two anyway, that's just subjective. 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:38.240 I don't know. 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:40.520 The kids might not know these days what to why 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:42.960 two K ment? Which there was this fear that all 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:46.800 the computers would short circuit because when software was first invented, 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:50.200 they didn't have root. Everything was just truncated to have 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:52.640 two digits for the years of ninety eight ninety nine. 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:55.280 People thought that then computers would revert to the year 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:59.240 zero and everything would melt down. But setting aside, that 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:02.560 didn't happen, and they fixed it. Setting aside, why two 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:04.440 K fashion? Why did you write this book? 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:08.120 Well, that's a really good question. So I wrote this 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:12.080 book because I was sort of going through a tough 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:17.400 time in my life around twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:20.640 It was a few rough years, but things were going 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:24.040 very badly for me. And then in twenty eighteen I 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:28.240 found this time capsule letter in my parents' house in 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:31.400 a box in their basement that I had written for 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:35.640 a millennium time capsule in nineteen ninety nine. Oh yeah, 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:39.840 and it was dated April nineteen ninety nine, and it 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:42.960 was for school because our elementary school made a time capsule. 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:46.480 And I guess what we had been assigned to do 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:50.280 is we'd been assigned a particular year to predict. And 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:53.560 the year I had to predict was two thousand and eight. 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:57.000 What did you say? What happened in two thousand and. 0:07:57.000 --> 0:07:58.040 Men would crash? 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:03.480 How's it would be these complex financial instruments called CEOs, 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:06.440 And now what did you say? What were your expectations? 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:07.160 Well? 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:10.520 First I said I would be a junior at Stanford University. 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:15.600 That didn't happen. Then I said that we would cure 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:17.960 all cancer. I mean, you know, there have been a 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:20.200 lot of innovations in the past twenty five years, but 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:24.440 I can't say we've cured all of it. And I 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:28.240 also said that we would be watching our we would 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:31.600 be watching our movies on the computer, which you were 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:32.120 right about. 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:32.880 You got that right. 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:33.679 Three. 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:35.400 It's pretty good, not terrible. 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:38.959 In high school, I decided to start a DVD collection 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:41.400 because I thought I was going to have DVDs forever, 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:43.520 and so, you know, I'm going to get started early 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:46.920 and have this awesome library of videos. And that lasted 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:50.000 for like a couple of years before streaming became a thing, 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:51.319 So you were way ahead of me. 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:53.200 Remember the DVD bros. 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:53.960 I mean you were. 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:56.439 Yeah, that was like that was a type of guys 0:08:56.520 --> 0:08:57.920 like has a really good TV? 0:08:58.120 --> 0:08:58.880 Oh yeah, no, it was. 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:01.959 It was a total data symbol, especially once you got 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:05.160 to like the early to mid two thousands. People would 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:07.560 collect them and it would be like, oh, this person 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:10.400 has forty DVDs wow, or this. 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:13.720 Yeah, come over to my house and watch Clerks because 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:15.400 I feel like a DVD broth. 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:15.720 And then. 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:22.480 Fall asleep and then the DVD intro menu is playing 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:24.280 and then you wake up in the middle of the 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:28.000 night and it's just on a loop. Yeah, and you're confused. 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:30.120 There was this amazing website. I don't know if either 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:32.840 of you remember it. It was called you Fell Asleep watching 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:35.280 a DVD? Do any of you remember that? And it 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:38.360 would just be this website that just had It was 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:40.079 a picture of a living room and then there was 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:42.320 a TV in there and it was floating that sort 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:45.480 of DVD menu at the end. It was very peaceful website. 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:47.320 I wonder if it still still exists. 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:50.560 Looking for it, Yeah, I really want to see that now. 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:54.000 But this actually reminds me, and Joe's made this point before, 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:57.360 which is the sort of late nineteen nineties, maybe early 0:09:57.400 --> 0:10:00.920 two thousands, before the bubble burst time period was really 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:05.640 a period of like, in some respects insane optimism about 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:10.160 what humans would be achieving in like the coming years. 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:12.679 And I think even now, obviously there's a lot of 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:15.800 excitement in the stock market about things like AI and 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:17.600 what that's going to be able to do, but even 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:21.400 now it's still tinged with some degree of skepticism, some 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:24.720 degree of worry over what's going to happen to jobs 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:28.040 and things like that, Whereas around like two thousand that 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:30.720 just wasn't there. It was like we were really looking 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:32.600 at this nirvana like future. 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:37.520 Yeah, And I think that that's a really good term nirvana, 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:39.960 which I can get to a little later. Talking about 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:43.960 the culture of Silicon Valley, there were some really strange 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:48.040 things that I found in my reporting in my research 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:51.360 for this book. So to be clear, I started researching 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:54.520 the book in I mean, I really started around the 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:56.439 time I found that letter, and I was getting very 0:10:56.440 --> 0:11:00.400 into these nostalgia accounts on Instagram and watch all these 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:02.959 old movies and listening to old music and all that 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:06.240 sort of thing, and then I signed the contract for 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.080 the book in twenty twenty two because I was like, well, 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:11.400 I'm totally obsessed with this thing. I'd like to write 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:14.880 a book about it. And so one of the things 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:21.280 that I found were really odd quotes from really respected figures. 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:26.000 So an example would be there was an MIT economist 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:30.400 in nineteen ninety eight who said, we will never have 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:36.559 another recession again. The economy will keep going up forever. 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:39.520 And then here's the really interesting thing that he said. 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:42.880 He said, we don't want one, we don't need one, 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:46.640 and we have the tools to prevent one. So it's 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.400 almost as if the laws. 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:52.960 Of the previous generations were too stupid to do not 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:53.720 want one. 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:56.040 Yes, it was quite a lot of hubris, right, if 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:59.599 they had only changed how things worked in their mind differently, 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:03.199 than they could have easily avoided all of those other 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:04.679 depressions and recessions. 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:06.960 I kind of still think that's the case. I kind 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:09.400 of still think, but sitting as that human nations, and 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:12.800 there is probably some human nature is cyclical, and we 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:14.960 were wrong to think it would be permanent piece and 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:18.559 expansion forever. So here's I guess another way of entering. 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.560 I mentioned my epiphany that at some point in like 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:23.480 nineteen nine and nine, I was like, everyone is rich 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:24.319 in life is great? 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:25.640 Was that rare? 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:28.920 We're a lot of people in those years having personal 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:32.680 feelings of that. Talk to us about again, not everyone 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:35.959 remembers it. How widespread was this feeling of abundance and 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:39.000 wealth that the general population. Obviously there were exceptions, there 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:42.079 were poor people, obviously, But how widespread was were these 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:43.480 feelings of wealth and so forth? 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:47.160 I mean, they were extremely widespread. So on a sort 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:52.319 of macro level, you have these big figures like this 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:55.000 MIT economist saying we're never going to have another recession. 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:56.760 You have a book that. 0:12:56.760 --> 0:13:00.000 Comes out in nineteen ninety nine called Dow thirty six thousand, 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:03.400 which I know that number doesn't sound impressive now, but 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:07.559 at the time, the Dow had just hit ten thousand, 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:09.880 and that was a really big deal. And that was like, 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:14.000 by the way, that was like practically a holiday. One 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:17.920 of the chairmen of the New York Stock Exchange and 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:20.520 Rudy Giuliani, who's at the time the New York City Mayor, 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:22.920 wore special hats that said Dow ten thousand, and they 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:26.320 rang the closing Bell in March March nineteen ninety nine. 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:30.160 But yeah, there's this book called Dow thirty six thousand, 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:35.120 which argued that you could basically expect like three hundred 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:39.560 percent returns on your investments in the next three to 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:44.680 five years. And that is kind of crazy that that 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:48.600 was out there. And if you see movies also like 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:52.600 to move away from kind of the nuts and bolts, 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:57.640 there was this feeling of, oh, everything's really great. Yeah, Oh, 0:13:57.720 --> 0:13:58.400 isn't it sad? 0:13:58.480 --> 0:13:58.680 Oh? 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:01.240 You know American Beauty, which is a movie, you know, 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:05.839 big award winning movie nineteen ninety nine. It's all about how, oh, 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.559 we're all so affluent now and there aren't any problems. 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:09.600 Isn't that sad? 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:13.040 Sort of right, those sort of like suburban. 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:17.280 Urbana, which I guess you had before. But there is 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:20.520 a sort of funny thing looking at it now or 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:22.920 watching You've Got Mail or any of these movies from 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:25.280 the late nineties where it's like, what are you people 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:30.920 so upset about you? You own property, you're you know, 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:33.360 your portfolio is doing great, You're gonna be fine. 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:38.560 So if you had to pinpoint like the foremost reason 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:42.840 behind this sense of optimism about the future, what do 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:44.600 you think it was looking back. 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:48.400 Well, I think the foremost reason was the dot com bubble. 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:50.840 So everyone was in fact getting rich. 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:57.400 Not Well, here's the thing, Okay, So I see culture 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:03.320 as being downstream from big forces, whether they're economic forces 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:07.040 or technology. And you know, it takes a few years. 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:10.240 Now it's faster because we have social media, but it 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:12.320 takes a few years for it to kind of trickle 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:17.040 through the culture for the vibe of the structural things 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:21.280 that are happening to inform fashion, to inform design, music, 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:26.640 things like that. And so even if you weren't personally 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:31.240 invested in the stock market or you weren't involved in 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:38.160 the tech world, I think that the feeling just permeated culture. 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:41.160 So there are a couple of examples. So in the book, 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:44.600 I talk about this inflatable chair I have, which, by 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:45.120 the way, I. 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:47.640 Had one of those two yes. Yes, yeah, So I'll 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:50.280 just say I've read all of Collette's book, and like 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:53.680 page after page I'm just nodding, going like, yes, this 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:55.080 was my experience as well. 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:57.920 Yeah, say more about the wait, say more about this. 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:02.120 Well, mine was blue and you would inflate it and 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:05.960 sit on it, and inevitably it would eventually spring a 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:07.920 leak and you would just sort of be sitting on 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:10.760 it while it slowly like collapsed onto the floor. 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:11.840 But they were a big deal. 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:15.440 They were a huge deal. And yeah, mine was silver. 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:17.960 The exact same thing happened, which I write about in 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:19.640 the book. It's kind of like the fish. It's almost 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:24.280 a perfect metaphor for the dot com bubble. But they 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:28.120 were these inflatable chairs that you sat on. Mine was silver, 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:30.760 and I was obsessed with it because I was like, 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:34.200 this is the chair of the future. In the new millennium, 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:37.640 we will all be sitting on silver inflatable furniture. Everything's 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:40.720 going to be silver. Our clothes, our makeup. We're going 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.720 to have these big clear blobby IMACG three's which had 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:46.640 just come out. That was a huge Yeah you did 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:47.040 any of you? 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:47.320 Ye? 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:48.800 Did either of you have those? 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:53.560 So I remember what year did the colorful Imax come out? 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:53.960 That was that? 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:56.480 So that was ninety eight. They came out the first 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:58.600 in ninety eight, and then ninety nine was when they 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:00.520 had the full range. 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:02.480 Right, they were so cool on the different Yeah, and 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:04.879 they just looked cool and I just I think in 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:07.919 my imagination at the time, like this is what you 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:09.760 used is if I were, like, if I're in my 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:12.760 mid twenties and I work again Seattle or San Francisco 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:15.080 or New York doing something like being an editor for 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:19.120 a magazine, I would be on one of these cool computers. 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.400 Care more about just sort of right exactly, say more 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:25.760 about the cultural downstream of the time. What are other 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.280 things that were sort of going on in the late 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:31.800 nineties that are emblematic of this society feeling very happy 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:32.200 and rich. 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:36.120 Well, yeah, so there's this thing called the now it's 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:39.160 called the Y two K aesthetic. Broadly, there's a really 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:45.520 cool collective of archivists who catalog They're called the Consumer 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:48.720 Aesthetics Research Institute. You should totally check them out, maybe 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:50.040 have them on the show. 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:51.360 They do a lot. 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:54.879 Of stuff about just design and marketing trends from the 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:58.560 late twentieth century to the present, and they and others 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:00.840 coin this term the Y two case, which was where 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:03.720 everything was really blobby, so it was really round, There 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:07.520 weren't sharp edges, everything was very transparent, which to me, 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:09.439 when I kind of did a deep read of it, 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:12.400 almost seemed like it was symbolizing like the Internet will 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:17.040 bring about transparency, like political transparency, and things aren't going 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:20.080 to have sharp militaristic edges. They're going to be round 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:23.480 and blobby, right, So just imagine think about the new Beetle, 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:26.960 which was the Volkswagen Yeah, super trendy, why two K 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:29.560 car that came in all these cute colors, like kind 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:32.680 of a Parado green one that I really wanted. And 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:35.119 think about that compared to the cyber truck, which is 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:38.160 like scary and sharp and the windows are small. 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:43.719 You know, cyber Truck's ugly, so ugly, Sorry but it is. Okay, 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:47.239 So speaking of Y two K one thing that never happened, well, 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:49.480 you actually don't write in your book that much about 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:51.960 the actual Y two K moment right now? Was that 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:54.080 like a conscious choice to avoid that? 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:59.560 Well, it just didn't figure into my analysis because in 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:03.359 hind site. Okay, So, first of all, I was calling 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:05.760 it Y two K because I wanted to talk about 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:10.320 this era basically between squarely between the dot com bubble 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:13.400 and the two thousand and eight crash and the culture 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:15.920 around it, as well as my own coming of age 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:18.600 which coincided with that, and I wanted to kind of 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:21.120 weave them all together to talk about these to kind 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:24.440 of situate my own memoir and coming of age within 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:29.320 this broader narrative of what was happening economically, politically, technologically, 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:32.560 et cetera. And the term that people like I said, 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:34.760 the term that people I found people using on social 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:35.679 media is y two K. 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:36.879 So that's what I used. 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:40.879 And I think the reason I didn't include discussions of 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:43.000 the y two K bug or the Y two K scare, 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:47.200 I think at all was because it just in hindsight, 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:51.560 when I'm analyzing the moment, it doesn't really figure large 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:53.600 into what the true story was. 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:53.920 To me. 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:56.920 I was at a New Year's Eve party on December 0:19:56.960 --> 0:19:59.240