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Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

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Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#111

Post by cortesoft »

phd514 wrote: post #37

I was ~1.5 years out of college and at a small dot-com with a niche SaaS at the time. I distinctly remember 9/11 and the chill that came over our office that day. That passed in time, but our economic prospects never recovered. I used to hit the gym in the mornings and then work ~10am-7pm and I distinctly remember the day ~9 months later when the VP of engineering called me on my cell while I was finishing up my work…

I went through something very similar at a startup around 2010 (layoffs, new runway because of layoffs, random pivots trying to find anything to work)... so I guess some things never change!

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#114

Post by mattrp »

shaftway wrote: post #13

I was at ask.com during the crash. The first bad part for me was the options. I planned on selling them the instant they vested. A week before vesting they were trading in the low hundred dollar range. The day they vested they were in the dollar range, with a strike price of 10 dollars. Thank goodness I didn't exercise them or I'd be stuck in the tax boat. So it was demoralizing, but I still had my salary, and I was…

+1 for reminding me about fuckedcompany.com — that was the first thing I read every morning. We didn’t pop up on it but I heard the news of our layoffs on the radio that morning when I was driving in - we were public and it was a pretty big layoff. As for what life was like after, my wife was pitching in midtown NYC on 9/11. It took her a week to drive back home. I knew a lot of founders who for many months kept pitching VC’s after 9/11 like everything was going to turn around the next day. I remember one who was just floored when a VC literally said to him: look, I took this meeting to do you a favor: stop pitching. Seriously. Anyway I don’t think it was until 2005-2006 before I stopped looking over my shoulder for news of layoffs in whatever job I had.

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#116

Post by rubicon33 »

heelix wrote: post #26

It was a rough point in time. In the dot com boom, people who could rub two lines of visual basic (for applications) were getting jobs. If you did not like your job, you could make a phone call and have a few offers waiting for you by the end of the day. Glorious stock options at promising startups after fleecing larger companies in panics about y2k and missing the boom. The parties and travel... We were joking about…

> In the dot com boom, people who could rub two lines of visual basic (for applications) were getting jobs. If you did not like your job, you could make a phone call and have a few offers waiting for you by the end of the day.

Yea, that doesn't sound anything like today!

/sarcasm

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#117

Post by jlawer »

dan-robertson wrote: post #92
ralphc wrote: post #70

I switched jobs in 1998, and was at a biggish, stable company in the Atlanta area, feeling lucky as I heard about stories like this out in California. When it happens again, I don't think it will be as bad. In addition to learning from the lessons of the past, remember that everyone had to buy hardware, servers, big-ass monitors, all that. Now personal laptops are cheaper plus everything's on AWS now, you scale up or…

What are AWS to do if their demand suddenly falls and they have enormous amounts of idle hardware?

Flip it on Amazon

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#118

Post by daxfohl »

I'll offer a story a little different from most here.

I was newly graduated and working at Accenture, erm, Andersen Consulting at the time. They had an incredible deal in light of the recession, where you could take up to a year unpaid leave (I can't remember how benefits worked out, was too young to care) and be guaranteed a job upon your return. I took the entire year to travel.

There was always the worry that they'd go back on their word, but they didn't, for me or for anyone else I've heard from. And when I came back I was at my same client as prior (eBay) and had a few years of low rent and light traffic in San Jose, after which I bailed for less congested pastures. (Actually I don't remember rent going down too much. But traffic definitely got lighter.)

I don't know how to arrange things so that it works out that well in your favor, but maybe try planting some seeds in your manager's head if it looks like the next downturn might be temporary (they always are). And don't own too much stuff, so you can take off at will. (I literally packed all my belongings in the trunk of my Jetta and left it in storage).

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#119

Post by lackbeard »

phd514 wrote: post #37

I was ~1.5 years out of college and at a small dot-com with a niche SaaS at the time. I distinctly remember 9/11 and the chill that came over our office that day. That passed in time, but our economic prospects never recovered. I used to hit the gym in the mornings and then work ~10am-7pm and I distinctly remember the day ~9 months later when the VP of engineering called me on my cell while I was finishing up my work…

I graduated from college and entered the industry just post-bust (early 2002.) I went to work for a company that had, 6 months prior, laid everyone off and decided to pivot with the remaining VC cash. I think it took them 3 or 4 months to figure out what the new company would be. That strategy wound up being successful for them (us, I guess...)
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