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I do not see comparisons of today with 2001 or 2008 as hyperbolic. I was working during both of those and remember them as fairly localized. Large areas were demolished, but there were plenty of other areas to move into for sharp, technically literate folks.

I had friends who, in 1999, were freshly-minted millionaires at Microstrategy, then lost it all less than a year later. And a friend who joined Lehman after his Wharton MBA in the summer of 2006. While it was not fun to be in the middle of the burst they all easily found high paying jobs within a few months.

I suspect this crisis may be worse as, after spending trillions on covid lockdowns, we have fewer options to spend our way out of this problem. The pain in both 2001 and 2008/9 was limited as the US pumped money into economy and inflated another bubble just as the previous one was bursting, and I think this option is not easy to use today. But I am not an economist, we shall see in a couple of years how this shakes up.

In the technology sector 2000/2001 was pretty bad. Obviously some large established companies weathered the storm relatively well. But the carnage even at companies like Cisco and EMC was immense. And they were still a lot better off than the dot-bombs. A ton of people were unemployed or underemployed for a long time and quite a few left the industry.

I was laid off right after 9/11 and I have no illusions that I was very lucky to land a job (at reduced comp with someone I knew well) quickly given that I otherwise didn't even have a nibble.

I went through both 2001 and 2008. Maybe crypto is relatable, but beyond that it's not close. Overall, companies have great balance sheets now. The VC funded, questionable businesses will have some washouts. But, in 2008 the whole financial system was coming apart - not localized at all. I remember going long on BofA and thinking if they go under it doesn't matter if I lose my investment.

I went through both, as well, and I'd say this is maybe similar to the early stages of the 2000/2001 contraction in that it's in particular affecting tech and happening rather slowly. Certainly not 2008, which was abrupt and severe, but didn't affect the tech sector as strongly as other sectors.

I wouldn't rule out that in 6 months the parallels with 2001 are more pronounced. However I agree it's not really close, especially with Google/Facebook/Apple/Amazon, etc. are still printing money at an incredible rate and that money continues to sprinkle into other parts of our sector.

During the .com crash there was a severe pullback in general on investment in the online startup space in general and it wasn't until the Google IPO that I felt we were truly out of that phase.

the only parallel to 2001 i see is crypto. The rest of tech is on pretty sound footing all things considered.

There is nothing going on in the tech industry today that even resembles 2001. For that matter, neither did 2008.

Yet.

Crashes are not instantaneous.

Crypto alone is easily a dot com sized scandal.

Cheap cash has led to a lot of dysfunctional and gigantic industries, eg food delivery.

We are nowhere near the bang yet.

The entire crypto market is a drop in the bucket. It could all go to zero tomorrow and not have any significant impact on anything (except maybe risk sentiment for a short period).

The cheap cash situation on the other hand is the elephant in the room. Unprofitable companies are about to be under immense pressure.

I don't know if there is going to be much of a bang rather than a very long deep slide for equities (especially tech) as indices undergo P/E compression. When we start seeing 12 P/E then maybe things will turn around.

> The entire crypto market is a drop in the bucket. It could all go to zero tomorrow and not have any significant impact on anything.

That's what I used to think, until I began to see how connected it was to other parts of the economy. Once financial institutions get involved, you just don't know how connected that system is anymore.

No matter how connected it is a $1T total market cap (at it's peak) is just not large enough to matter. If it goes to zero it goes to zero, no large financial institutions will shed a tear other than for whatever fat fees they were making selling crypto derivatives to their whale clients.

Sorry but crypto is anti medium of exchange. The real economy doesn't give a damn about bitcoin.

No that’s right we’re still in the denial phase some time in 2000 but the layoffs have started.

People say that pretty much every time there's negative economic news, and eventually they'll be right. But it hasn't happened yet.

The thing is, We don’t have fewer options. We’re just exploding over with talking heads telling us we can or can’t do something.

The difference between now and 2001 is the reliance the rest of the world has on the tech we work on. Some of this stuff is trivial but a lot of it has people/enterprises that rely on the work we do.

We’re at the tail end of the largest asset bubble in history with near 10% inflation, war, pandemic, debt at > 100% GDP and interest rates rising from a decade near 0.

None of this is normal and what follows won’t be either.

The 80s,90s and 2000s would like a word with you.

There are quite a few differences, the crypto bubble is similar to 2000 I guess.

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/ (see market cap)

https://www.multpl.com/inflation-adjusted-s-p-500

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL#0

This won’t end well and in the current environment of high inflation the fed has no choice but to raise interest rates and companies will continue to layoff into the recession.

Sure, there are differences... but in the 80s, i remember people burning their houses down to collect insurance money because of things like high interest rates, high inflation and the savings and loan scandal amongst following a huge energy crisis, a huge escallation in the cold war, political strife and so much more.

As for the fed, they're raising interest rates to cool things off - hopefully people are investing in ibonds and just maybe savings accounts will see more than 5th of 1% again so there are some upsides.

Layoffs? they're happening but unemployment still went down.

Well, there is this: https://layoffs.fyi/

and many other offshoots.

https://www.thelayoff.com/

> In 2001, there was literally a site doing nothing but reporting in flamboyant terms all of the "fucked companies" going under. IIRC

You mean like https://rekt.news ?

Contagion is ripping through crypto, at least, in a way that's more like 2008.

Nah, I disagree. I work in crypto (coinbase) and was working in tech in the Bay Area in 2008.

As of today, many crypto companies have money from 2021/early 2022 raises and are still hiring. In 2008 the private tech market reaction to the stock market crash was swift and brutal.

It was really hard to get a job in 2008. Today it feels like their is a big lag between stock pullbacks and jobs drying up. None of my colleagues who were laid off are having trouble getting jobs in crypto and have options in other parts of tech if they want it.

To be clear I expect the jobs situation to get worse this year and in 2023.

Why do you expect jobs situation to get worse in 2023? Shouldn’t these corrections happen now so companies plan their runway to ~2 years?

Scenario I’m worried about: inflation continues, rates keep increasing and this to impact public company earnings.

In an effort to mitigate this, companies will cut costs by firing people, slowing hiring and cutting services and advertising.

This will then impact private companies ability to raise.

Judging by the number of people living paycheck-to-paycheck, I think all it will take is a slight uptick in layoffs to light the fuse for another housing crash.