The Joel Test
It’s the year 2000. For the previous five years, significant growth in the use of the Internet has fueled investment and speculation in Internet-based companies.
This period, called the dot-com bubble,[63] saw the Nasdaq Composite index rise around 400 percent as investors clamored to invest in any dot-com company, often at any valuation, overlooking traditional metrics of company health such as profitability, or even revenue. As Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, described it, it was a time of “irrational exuberance.”
Venture capital was easy to raise and it flowed freely into plentiful, hyped dot-coms. Investment banks added to the speculation by encouraging investment in technology so that they could profit ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access