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Ask HN: What company were you at when the dot-com bubble burst in mid 2000?

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Re: Ask HN: What company were you at when the dot-com bubble burst in mid 2000?

#21

Post by muhfuhkuh »

I was in a software company with a product that made it easier to interoperate with different OSes. I was doing tech support on e-mail and phone duty and did QA work on the side.

The #1 thing is to sniff out the signs of a poorly run company which, believe me, even if you couldn't care less about the machinations of business much less have never run one, you can still see the warning flags a country mile away.

When there is no clear oversight of who is keeping tabs, you're in trouble. This ill-fated company company had a staff at most 60 and yet we had a tech closet with _literally_ a laundry basket full of RAM; for WHAT? I had no idea. That was just the tip of the iceberg.

I knew it was over about 6 months later when the CEO hired a friend to run marketing and the guy ordered Aeron chairs for him and his hangers-on "team". Then we had a huge blowout shindig replete with house band, Filet Mignon and an open bar. Everyone was completely wasted and well-fed. It was glorious.

3 months later we were all laid off.

Re: Ask HN: What company were you at when the dot-com bubble burst in mid 2000?

#22

Post by po »

I had just left a mobile healthcare company (Palm VII's and Palm V's with a giant data sled!!!) I had founded in college with some friends that was doomed for failure.

I had just graduated and started at a small mobile company (hockey-stick growth!) that was trying to convince distributors that putting cell phones in Coke machines to call home was a good idea. I was told the company was planning to double in size that year. I was the last guy they hired.

About 4 months later I got laid off when the company went from 60 employees down to about 10 in one afternoon. I felt horrible. I then went through a get-hired/layoff cycle despite giving 110% effort at each new job. Oddly enough, each new position paid better and I sharpened my skills. I learned the art of the interview, and I learned that sometimes getting laid off has nothing to do with you.

Being rejected and forced to claw my way into the field with little experience was good for me, but for a while I overvalued job security.

I learned this: always have a few months living expenses in the bank. When the music stops, you won't have time to run and grab a chair. Live on Ramen and pickles until you have saved up enough and then make that number your new "empty". If you increase your cost of living, increase your reserve. Bank account:2mos is the new Inbox:0

Re: Ask HN: What company were you at when the dot-com bubble burst in mid 2000?

#23

Post by fingerprinter »

I was working at a video streaming company called in CT. They bought tons of bandwidth and had HUGE datacenters throughout the country. We streamed events live that had not been done before (Island hole @ Master's championship etc).

We started to do TV shows and movies (had deals with major movies studios...). We were basically Hulu in 1999/2000 but the technology sucked at the time. Our choices were Real or Windows format video. Both were bad and required conversion to that format which took a long time in those days.

$75 million in funding, lots of bandwidth bough, some good examples of what we could do, but ultimately we burned money like most did back then. We tried to sell but when the market tanked most suitors walked away and the company just folded. Great lessons to learn right out of college.

After that experience I wanted to work for a more stable company right after. Since I was getting married I wanted to work for a company making money and one that would weather the down turn in the market. I accepted a job w/ Enron :/ Anyone want to guess how long that one lasted? I still have option certificates for something like $62.50...yikes.

Re: Ask HN: What company were you at when the dot-com bubble burst in mid 2000?

#24

Post by jasonkester »

I was working for this little company called Trailworks.com, burning through a mere 25 million dollars in the course of six months.

They hit the ground hard shortly after launch, laid off all their staff, then brought me and one dba back on contract to mothball everything. I quoted an extortionate rate and they gladly jumped on it. For the next 3 months, the phone would ring several times a week with recruiters offering progressively more ludicrous contract rates for new gigs. Times were fat, so I turned them all down.

Mothballing complete, I turned down a new slew of dream gigs and hopped a flight to Thailand and Australia. 5 months later, tanned and grinning, I landed in the 'states and called up my recruiter:

"Hey, remember all those awesome gigs you had for crazy contract rates? I'll take one o' them, thanks."

"Uh... We don't have any more of those. Didn't you hear? We have some regular jobs for regular money, if you'd like."

"oh."

"Yeah. And you might want to check your eTrade account while you're at it..."

Gotta say though, it was a fun ride while it was happening. Everybody knew it was too good to be true, but we were happy to party like it was 1999. Cause, you know, it was.

Re: Ask HN: What company were you at when the dot-com bubble burst in mid 2000?

#25

Post by pigboy »

Principal Software Designer for embedded systems at Simplex Time Recorder, a subsidiary of Tyco International.

The dot-com bubble involved more than Internet companies as Tyco's stock crashed amid scandal involving its CEO. For me this led to downsizing, layoffs, a year of consulting, three of working under lousy conditions and finally a complete career change to teaching.

Lesson learned? The free enterprise system is seriously flawed. I watched a thriving, innovative American business get eaten alive by Tyco. A handful got filthy rich while thousands of workers lost their jobs as production moved overseas. Shameful..

Re: Ask HN: What company were you at when the dot-com bubble burst in mid 2000?

#26

Post by rdl »

I was living on a tiny platform (Sealand) in the north sea, working on my startup HavenCo (offshore datahaven, hosting a variety of services which were worried about legal and jurisdictional issues), from 2000-2003.

My title was initially CTO, and then "last person left".

Short lessons:

* lots of press coverage can be a pain to manage.

* be careful about plans which depend on a full funding round (make sure you are still able to do at least 1/3 of the work with 1/3 of the money, and get to a viable product

* try to prove concepts cheaply early on

* don't let the company use your personal credit, it might collapse and you'll be >$200k in debt at 21...

I regret not bailing for Google in 2001 when it was an option.

Re: Ask HN: What company were you at when the dot-com bubble burst in mid 2000?

#29

Post by veidr »

masonmark wrote: post #16

In 2003 I was just a few years out of college, working for ClickSitez Japan, K.K., a startup trying to convince VCs that people were going to do their photos on the interweb tubes. We had angel funding and a prototype/demo with one and only one error-free path through it (the "shining path", one of our advisors called it, and the name stuck). We on the engineering side divided our time between coding the prototype an…

Ooops, second word there is a typo--should be 2000, sigh.
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