--- title: Tech Stocks and the 2000 Dotcom Bust: 15 Years of Wall Street Lessons description: It was 15 years ago that the tech-stock bubble burst canonical: https://time.com/3741681/2000-dotcom-stock-bust/ author: Ben Geier article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-12T20:00:13.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:59:42.537Z article:section: History og:title: Tech Stocks and the 2000 Dotcom Bust: 15 Years of Wall Street Lessons og:description: It was 15 years ago that the tech-stock bubble burst og:url: https://time.com/3741681/2000-dotcom-stock-bust/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5519dcbdba896430/69878347524fc0179ddecddf/nasdaq.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Nasdaq board og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Tech Stocks and the 2000 Dotcom Bust: 15 Years of Wall Street Lessons twitter:description: It was 15 years ago that the tech-stock bubble burst twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5519dcbdba896430/69878347524fc0179ddecddf/nasdaq.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What Did We Learn From the Dotcom Stock Bubble of 2000? > Sponsored content. 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MONEY VIDEO_ by [Ben Geier](https://time.com/author/ben-geier/) ## Ben Geier Mar 12, 2015 8:00 PM UTC  A passer-by looks over the prices on the Nasdaq board in Times Square in New York, April 3, 2000. A passer-by looks over the prices on the Nasdaq board in Times Square in New York, April 3, 2000. Chris Hondros—Getty Images by [Ben Geier](https://time.com/author/ben-geier/) ## Ben Geier Mar 12, 2015 8:00 PM UTC Fifteen years can seem like a long time — and the year 2000 can seem like a different world. Back in those halcyon days of the early new millennium, America was enjoying a post-Lewinsky Scandal, pre-9/11 glow. The Yankees were winning World Series. Justin and Britney were America’s hottest couple. And the “dotcom” economy was chugging along, with new internet-based companies seeming to pop up every single week. But in March of 2000, 15 years ago, one of those things came to a crashing halt. The dotcom bubble, which had been building up for the better part of three years, slowly began to pop. Stocks sunk. Companies folded. Fortunes were lost, and the American economy started to slip down a slow mudslide that would end up in full-on recession. Today, in the middle of another boom in technology-based businesses, let’s look back at what happened to the early techno-tycoons — and what, if anything, we can learn from their mistakes. **The Buildup** The dotcom bubble started growing in the late ’90s, as access to the internet expanded and computing took on an increasingly important part in people’s daily lives. Online retailing was one of the biggest drivers of this growth, with sites like Pets.com — you know, the one with the cute sock-puppet mascot starring in the funny ads — getting big investors and gaining a place in American consumer culture. With the investment and excitement, stock values grew. The value of the NASDAQ, home to many of the biggest tech stocks, grew from around 1,000 points in 1995 to more than 5,000 in 2000\. Companies were going to market with IPOs and fetching huge prices, with stocks sometimes doubling on the first day. It was a seeming wonderland where anyone with an idea could start making money. **The Burst** In March of 2000, everything started to change. On March 10, the combined values of stocks on the NASDAQ was at $6.71 trillion; the crash began March 11\. By March 30, the NASDAQ was valued at $6.02 trillion. On April 6, 2000, it was $5.78 trillion. In less than a month, nearly a trillion dollars worth of stock value had completely evaporated. One JP Morgan analyst [told TIME in April of 2000](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,996667,00.html) that a lot of companies were losing between $10 and $30 million a quarter — a rate that is obviously unsustainable, and was going to end with a lot of dead sites and lost investments. Companies started folding. (Pets.com was one.) Magazines, including TIME, started running [stories](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,996454,00.html) advising investors on how to limit their exposure to the tech sector, sensing that people were going to start taking a beating if their portfolios were too tied to e-tailers and other companies that were dropping like flies. During the 2000 Super Bowl, 17 dotcom companies had paid $44 million for ad spots, according to a Bloomberg [article](http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/2001-01-07/whats-missing-from-super-bowl-xxxv) from the following year. At the 2001 Super Bowl, just one year after that bonanza, only three dotcom companies ran ads during the game. **Does history repeat itself?** The shadow of 2000 dotcom bubble burst looms especially large now, as the economy is in another era of huge growth in the tech sector. Chinese e-tailer Alibaba had a [history-making](http://time.com/3399647/alibaba-ipo-stock-offering/?xid=newsletter-brief) IPO last fall. Companies like Uber, Palantir and AirBnB are “Unicorns,” start-ups held privately and worth more than $1 billion — so-called because, for a long time, people thought they couldn’t really exist. Are we in for another bubble burst? Entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban thinks so, arguing recently [on his blog](http://blogmaverick.com/2015/03/04/why-this-tech-bubble-is-worse-than-the-tech-bubble-of-2000/) that the difference between the 2000 bubble and today’s economy is that today’s bubble isn’t really about the stock market. It also includes private “angel” investments, which can’t just be sold off like stocks. And that, he says, is a problem: --- > “” --- Essentially, Cuban thinks that despite the huge investments many start-ups are getting, there just isn’t any real cash in those companies. Eventually, that will become apparent, but the investors will be stuck. Some claim that we’re safe, though, that there’s more scrutiny from investors today. In response to Cuban, entrepreneur Amish Shah wrote on [Business Insider ](http://www.businessinsider.com/why-mark-cuban-is-dead-wrong-2015-3)that investors today aren’t looking for the type of quick return many were in 2000\. Instead, they know that private investment is a long-term process, where earning a profit would likely take years. Plus, he adds, investors today are so wary of what happened 15 years ago that they’re careful. In other words, whether or not the world has learned anything else from the problems of the year 2000, one thing won’t be forgotten: it was bad, and nobody wants it to happen again. _Read next:_ [_How the Cheap Euro Is Hurting Your Investments_](http://time.com/money/3741110/euro-low-hurts-investors/?iid=time%5Freadnext) [_Listen to the most important stories of the day._](http://time.com/newsletter/the-brief/?sl%5Fautoplay=true&xid=spl-fullbrief-article) ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] There are a few reasons why you should invest. Number one is to keep up with inflation. Every year goods and services will become and will get more expensive, whether it's a utility bill. Grocery bills, clothing. It's hard to keep up with inflation by just putting money into savings accounts. If you do nothing with your money, your purchasing power will diminish. You might still have $ 50, 000 in your bank account, but that money today is worth. Quite a bit less than it was twenty years ago you always want to maintain a balanced budget as you are going through your life. But living pay check to pay check won't allow you to retire. investing your excess cash flow will allow you to accumulate funds that you can live off of later on in retirement. If you do not invest properly now for your retirement. You may not even be able to retire. 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