Talking Points

Entrepreneurs were both beneficiaries and victims of the bubble and the other players in the financial value chain. Excited by the prospect of great wealth, they eagerly took their companies public; but usually they were unable to sell out quickly, and in the bubble's burst, many lost all their wealth and their companies as well.

Entrepreneurs generally started with an idea and hard work; were pushed to make their companies get-big-fast; saw their companies taken public to the great profit of many, but rarely themselves; and then when the market crashed, lost most of both their paper wealth and their companies. What had been lost by a young entrepreneur? The answer is years of intense effort, and a business which might have, in a different context, survived to prosper to the benefit of its founders, employees, and customers. What had been gained? Some bitter experience.

Not only the entrepreneurs and late stage investors lost in the bubble. Many people worked for Internet companies, and many lost their jobs after the bubble burst. Those who were able to get hired by old economy firms found that they were returning to a more authoritarian and formal workplace than they had enjoyed in the new economy. More than economics had been at stake; a cultural revolution in the workplace was also set back when the bubble crashed.