Flutterby™! : boom and bust 2003-01-22 22:29:49+00

boom and bust

2003-01-22 22:29:49+00 by Dan Lyke 3 comments

Frank's Depression: The boom-bust of a dotcommer's identity looks at someone who went from construction work and waiting tables, to a high flying life as a web designer, and back down. Worth reading because we're seeing a lot of this story, the real estate market hasn't yet caught up, and we're going to have some high maintenance costs on the build-out. And we're going to need something other than tax breaks for the top end and a war to change the attitudes of our compatriots back to an entrepreneuring mode.

Wait a minute.... are you saying we should be feeling sorry for this guy. For someone who obviously was greedy the statement ; "He rants about the evils of greed. "Everyone's more concerned about making money for themselves than with the greater whole," . ...er.. like himself !!!

Maybe if we valued construction workers more than people who make flashy colors blink on a page then we would be in a better place. Some people jumped on a path;a very few made money, the rest did not have the guts to jump off as they were still looking for their easy millions. Cry me a river.

Most of what went on was not entrepreneurship; it was a stock market shell game of massive proportions. People were not doing the work because it was satisfying it was because they saw the "easy" money. Long hours of work dont make something like that better it just makes the people prepared to do it more naive

I say this from someone who works in software company on a program that makes money. We had our internet group appear and squander millions before they were let go off as well.Luckily we had our original products that people still wanted.

No, I don't expect any pity. I've made fun of such people in the past, and still am happy that the level of service in restaurants and coffee shops is back up to pre 1999 stanards. But what I do see is that people who had jobs in construction, and who rode the boom, are now resigning themselves to jobs lower than where they started. Rather than viewing this as a learning experience, they've taken it as a smackdown, and we're starting again from less than zero.

And there are forces willing to create the false boom, just like before, just to ride the roller coaster no matter what the long term problems are. On the other side of the coin, a path loosely laid out by Dan, Debbie and myself back in 1994 has paid off. I don't feel any pity for this guy.. or any of the others who squandered thousands or millions on irrational paradigms involving sticky eyeballs and impulse click-to-buy schemes that were, as stumsc said. a " stock market shell game of massive proportions". On the good side, the dot.com boom era jump started a lot of good thought processes that are just starting to mature. On the bad side, really good ideas and companies are having problems getting even reasonable amounts of capital because of gun shy investors and banks. I got asked locally at a 'Mayor's' conference on technology what happened to the local 'dot-commers' after the fall, my answer was "the good ones have new jobs in the field or related fields, and the rest went back to waiting tables and tending bar, where they were hired from in the first place". It was not a popular answer, but it was the truth, locally as well as worldwide.. In one good local story, the local dotcommer had saved up his money and when the world sucked vacuum, bought the bar (T-Bones) he used to work at. It's doing well.

I'm pleased that some people with real skills (like Eric) have decided to go back to school, adding some other knowledge to their computer skills, and will probably be on the crest of whatever smaller waves come next. At least, I hope so.