

Ask HN: Best Dotcom Bubble Stories - mergy

As we debate whether or not we are in a social media-driven tech bubble or not, it might be fun for those of us who lived through the one 15 years or so ago to post your favorite stories around the excess and lack of success in that era.
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SuperChihuahua
Here's one from an interview with Chris Sacca
([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6NpHbMFaQ8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6NpHbMFaQ8)):

In the late 1990s, Chris Sacca used his student loan to start a company within
the lawsuit industry - not to pay tuition. But he realized the idea was bad,
he didn't have the skills needed, and he didn't have any investors. So before
he ran out of money, he began day-trading stocks with the remaining money.
This was during the buildup of the tech bubble so he made a huge profit from
the trading. When the bubble exploded, his wealth decreased from 12 million to
-2.8 million. His surroundings had convinced him that he was a stock market
genius - so he thought he knew something. When the stock market crashed, he
thought he was just unlucky. He was now 25 years old, no network, and had to
find a way to make 2.8 million.

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meerita
GovWorks?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GovWorks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GovWorks)

They've made a movie too.

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Mankhool
One of my favourites is Boo.com
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boo.com](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boo.com)

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Mankhool
A list of the top 10 from CNET
[http://www.cnet.com/1990-11136_1-6278387-1.html](http://www.cnet.com/1990-11136_1-6278387-1.html)

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unfunco
An interesting item on that list is Flooz:

    
    
      Flooz was meant to be online currency that would serve as
      an alternative to credit cards. It boggles the mind why
      anyone would rather use an "online currency" than an actual
      credit card, but that didn't stop Flooz from raising a
      staggering $35 million from investors and signing up retail
      giants such as Tower Records, Barnes & Noble, and
      Restoration Hardware.
    

That sounds eerily familiar in the modern economy.

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kschua
The CueCat for me
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat)

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adventured
The US produced a lot of spectacular rise & fall billionaire stories, but none
were greater than the two that Japan produced.

Masayoshi Son, of Softbank, hit a peak of $76 or so billion. Eventually
dwindling down to $1.1 billion, a 'loss' of about $75 billion. Don't feel too
bad for him though, perhaps fittingly given the discussion of a bubble again,
he's back up to $16 billion in net worth and ascending (75% gain in wealth
this past year).

Yasumitsu Shigeta was worth $42 billion at the peak of the bubble. Numerically
he basically lost it all; what he had left was a rounding error. He was the
founder of telecom company Hikari Tsushin. In 1999, he was Japan's youngest
billionaire at 34. He's now back to being a billionaire again, 14 years later.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesasia/2013/04/03/fifteen-
ye...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesasia/2013/04/03/fifteen-years-of-ups-
and-downs-for-yasumitsu-shigeta/)

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jgalt212
My favorite bubble story is Airbnb building a conference room modelled after
the War Room in Dr. Strangelove:

[http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/workspace-
ar...](http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/workspace-arms-race)

