Have We Learned from the New Economy?

prostoalex writes "The new issue of Fast Company magazine looks at the so-called New Economy in retrospect. There were some myths about the Internet that were not true, or could be considered true only partially in the brief history of the Internet boom, there were people who got burned and those who nicely cashed out and then there were those who had to start a new life because of the Internet."

Comments

Sendmygift.com

[thejuggler]

Anyone ever heard of that company? I used to work for them back in 1998-2000. It was supposed to be a huge (as Amazon) online store where people could by gifts chosen from our catalog that had thousands of gift items from jewelry (high end stuff) to home and garden, business, kids gifts, kitchen and food items to flowers. There was a gift reminder service (a personal event calendar where you enter event b-day's, etc.) that would remind you to buy a gift for the scheduled event, it would even provide a few suggestions based on info you provided.

The only problem was that the owners allegedly sold private shares of stock illegally. (A court Minnesota ruled against the company is several lawsuits brought by shareholders). The bankruptcy still lingers on. The thousands of shares I received for being an employee are worthless. My belief now is that the owner never intended to make money or operate a successful business. All he talked about was 'going public' and how rich we (he) were going to be.

The "New Economy' taught me a lot. After working to two other companies with the same business model I now work for an 'Old Economy' business that actually believes in making a profit, serving it customers and taking care of it employees. There is no IPO in sight for this company and that's fine with me.

I'll take a steady paycheck today instead of the promise of stock pay offs tomorrow.

Speculation bubbles are not modern inventions

[poszi]

Nothing beats the 17th century tulipmania . The power of human greed is always amazing.

Re:Speculation bubbles are not modern inventions

[afeeney]

You are so right, but there's one thought that I would add.

Just like the tulip mania or the South Sea Bubble or all the other bubbles since, once all the attention is on the stock rather than the intrinsic value of the product or service, then winning or losing depends on timing the market. (Or on having insider information.)

One thing that I think made the Dotcom Bubble a different twist was that it coincided with the rise of daytrading, the ubiquitous information age, and the age of easy credit card debt, so it was even easier for the people who have only the foggiest notion of evaluating and forecasting a stock's value to get into the market.

Certainly during the previous bubbles, lower-income people could still get in on the speculation, but there were several new forces converging to add to its capacity to reach investors.

What I learned during the bubble...

[ubiquitin]

... is that self employment is the safest way to build a career. Why? The fundamental unit of trust is another person, not another company. As self-employed, I've insulated myself from most, if not all, of the stupid crap that companies do. While I have friends who have been laid off and rehired several times, I'm now for the first time confident in my financial future because I have a list of clients who all really need my services. They now trust me to get the work done. I trust them to pay on time. And that (to me) is worth more than a fat 401k because in ten years my work will be inflation-adjusted and grows with my clients (all of whom have been selected in part because they are likely to grow and already have a good pattern of it.)

And when I get ready to hire? The number one thing I'll be looking for on those resumes is a history of self-reliance and individual responsibility. There are a lot of professional committee-manipulators out there who like their comfortable BigCorp positions, and good for them. I'm confident that in twenty years, when we both look back and to see where we stand, my contributions to the world will be both worthwhile and significant.

Really, it all boils down to trust. That's what underlies the economic viability of open source: you're dealing with people and standardized network protocols and not organizational entities or proprietary lockin.