dot-com bubble
/dot-kom BUB-ul/ · noun · Startup & VC · Origin: 1995
Definitions
The speculative frenzy in internet-related stocks from roughly 1995 to 2001, during which companies with no revenue and dubious business models reached billion-dollar valuations. The bubble peaked in March 2000 and burst spectacularly, wiping out $5 trillion in market value and establishing the template for every subsequent tech hype cycle.
In plain English: A period in the late 1990s when internet company stocks skyrocketed on pure hype, then crashed spectacularly in 2000, wiping out trillions of dollars.
Example: Pets.com raised $82 million in its IPO and was bankrupt within a year — peak dot-com bubble energy.
Origin Story
The speculative frenzy that proved the internet was overhyped -- then underhyped
The **dot-com bubble** inflated from roughly 1995 to March 2000, when the NASDAQ peaked at 5,048. Companies with no revenue, no business model, and no path to profitability reached billions in market cap simply by adding '.com' to their names.
Pets.com (spent $11.8 million on a Super Bowl ad, went bankrupt 9 months later), Webvan ($375 million in VC burned through in 18 months), and Kozmo.com (free delivery of anything, including a single candy bar) became symbols of the excess.
The crash wiped out $5 trillion in market value between 2000 and 2002. But the survivors -- Amazon, Google, eBay -- went on to become the most valuable companies in history. The bubble's real lesson wasn't that the internet was overhyped; it was that the timing was wrong. Everything the dot-com prophets predicted came true -- just ten years late.
Coined by: Financial/media terminology
Context: 1995-2000 (bubble), March 2000 (peak), 2000-2002 (crash)
Fun fact: Amazon's stock fell 93% from its 1999 peak of $107 to $7 in 2001. Investors who held through the crash and are still holding today saw returns of over 20,000%. Jeff Bezos reportedly told employees: 'Our stock price is down 80%. We have not become 80% dumber.'