Back To 1995

  Song Yang looked at the "Barrons Weekly" magazine in his hand. This was not the first magazine that broke out the crisis of the Internet, but it was the most influential financial magazine.

  Signs have already appeared. More than a week ago, the boss of the Federal Reserve has already let out the wind, and spread the news that the interest rate of the US dollar may be raised, because he thinks that the Internet and the technology industry are too fanatical.

  In the past few years, rumors of being too enthusiastic about the Internet have popped up from time to time, but they haven't caused much publicity.

  But this time, "Barron's Weekly" did a detailed investigation. It didn't analyze the so-called prospects of the Internet, such as users, traffic, and visits. It started from the most direct place, and Internet companies would run out of money!

  The foundation of Internet mania is that Wall Street banks and institutions have continuously burned money for the Internet to create today's Nasdaq, but now, Wall Street can no longer burn, and has begun to harvest!

  Internet for money, what is left? The report of "Barron's Weekly" is indeed a huge shock for the Internet industry.

   "The Internet will not collapse, and neither will AOL. In the past few years, I have heard too many news about the collapse of the Internet, but every time, the Nasdaq index has risen even higher than before!"

  AOL co-CEO Keith, in the face of media interviews, said righteously, indicating that AOL is operating normally and has sufficient funds to deal with all troubles.

"Yes, Yahoo has enough funds to solve the troubles. As we all know, Yahoo has just conducted a large share repurchase, which is enough to show the determination of Yahoo's board of directors. If Yahoo is not optimistic, who will buy back more than 10 billion US dollars? Knife's stake in Yahoo?"

  Yahoo CEO Coorg also said with a smile during the interview that after the news was released, Yahoo’s stock price rose sharply and returned to a market value of US$150 billion.

  Indeed, if you are not optimistic about Yahoo, how could the board of directors of Yahoo spend more than 10 billion dollars to repurchase the shares of Yahoo held by Song Yang? Do the leeks know Yahoo better than the board of directors of Yahoo? !

  Edgar Bronfman, Jr. also represented ICQ in an exclusive interview with The New York Times, responding to rumors of "Internet crash theory".

"Yes, every industry will experience troughs, but the Internet has never entered a trough period. Only those who have really understood the Internet will understand what is happening on the Internet. This is a new technology that completely subverts traditions. The way of shopping, communication and entertainment is like the arrival of the electrification era in the 1920s, when cars replaced horse-drawn carriages, and electricity replaced steam engines!

  I know some people are not willing to be replaced, but history will not give someone a chance to breathe! "

Edgar Bronfman Jr. has obviously done his homework. During the interview, he was personable and showed the demeanor of a big man. When he mentioned the Internet, he was even more witty. He attributed the recent negative rumors on the Internet to traditional Some people in the industry are not reconciled, unwilling to be replaced by the Internet, unwilling to disappear into the garbage dump of history, so they are overwhelmed by their own strength and want to prevent the arrival of the Internet era!

  As soon as this interview came out, Edgar Jr.'s remarks were reprinted by many media under the help of the Internet industry, which greatly improved Edgar Bronfman Jr.'s reputation. …

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  【Return to 1995】【】

After a group of Internet giants issued statements one after another that everything was operating normally and there would be no so-called crash, although many Internet leeks ran away, there were still countless leeks who rushed into Nasdaq one after another. After all, the money is coming in too fast. If you bought a certain Internet stock for 2,000 dollars a week ago, these stocks may be worth more than 10,000 dollars a week later. Who can refuse such a temptation? To test human nature, isn't that bullshit!

  Although external pressure appeared, it did not stop the frenzy of the Internet. On the contrary, it made the major Internet companies even more frenzied, and it seemed that the final madness was about to be staged.

Named and commented by Barron’s, Pe., an e-commerce platform selling pet products that may be running out of cash flow, announced that it will invest huge amounts of advertising in more than 15 major cities in America in the second half of this year, and won next year’s super According to media statistics, the advertisements invested by the Pe website are 20 times their revenue. Obviously, the Pe website is betting heavily that they can win the favor of investors, and the leeks will not abandon it!

   Not only the Pe website, but the WebVan website, which is mainly engaged in food delivery, claims to invest one billion dollars to expand the market to 26 cities in America and overseas!

Even though there seems to be constant storms against the Internet, everything in the Internet industry seems to be as usual. The supply of computer majors who graduated from Stanford and major universities is still in short supply, because dozens of new Internet companies appear in Silicon Valley every day, and programmers Impossible to cultivate so fast.

This allows a programmer who graduated from a university to hold four or five recruitment contracts from large companies as soon as he leaves school. As long as he signs, he can get an annual salary of 80,000, 100,000 dollars or even more. You know Even after more than 20 years, the salary of programmers in Silicon Valley is only at this level, and the annual salary of ordinary people in America is only 30,000 to 50,000 dollars...

Not to mention, as soon as these newcomers enter the Internet company and work for a few months, if they are lucky, they will be able to get options and equity rewards worth millions of dollars. Some talented programmers came up with a certain This is a genius idea, as long as you go out and find a venture capital company, you can build an Internet company worth tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars in an instant!

Colin McMillan, who just graduated from the University of San Jose, walked into the ICQ headquarters building. Like his predecessors, McMillan also chose to enter ICQ after graduation. After all, it was established by his brother, the University of San Jose. Most of the graduates will choose to enter companies such as ICQ, PayPal, Fortinet, Xueleshan Online Platform, eBay, Amazon, Wikipedia and most recently Google.

Colin McMillan wants to enter PayPal or Google, because Google has not yet been listed. After he passes, if he can catch up with Google’s listing, maybe he will become a million or tens of millions in a year or two. regal.

Fortinet and eBay have been listed, not to mention the giant company ICQ, but the strange thing is that PayPal and Google have not released too many places since the second half of this year, so he has no chance to apply for the job, and finally joined ICQ, ICQ Although it is impossible to give him options and the like right away, the treatment, benefits and the like are all counted in Silicon Valley. …

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  【Return to 1995】【】

Colin McMillan joined the development department of ICQ, responsible for maintaining ICQ operations, developing new functions, etc., busy until noon, Colin McMillan went to have dinner outside the company in advance under the leadership of the "old man" in the department, In the evening, the head of the department will hold a party for these rookies.

In places like Silicon Valley, parties have become a trend. Like the party held for Colin McMillan and his newcomers today, the cost is around 30,000 to 50,000 dollars. If there are department managers to participate, the cost will be more than 100,000. For those with a US dollar or above, parties are not just about drinking. As the highest-income group in America, they hold parties and invite models and the like to participate. Sometimes they even invite small Hollywood stars to come. Naturally, the cost is expensive.

After leaving the ICQ headquarters building, the "old man" of the development department took Colin McMillan and several others and rushed towards a western restaurant. ICQ provides lunch, which is delivered by a third-party catering company every day, but many ICQ staff don't like to eat those delivered lunches anymore, but go out to eat in restaurants by themselves, and ICQ will also provide a meal fee for this.

Colin McMillan has long heard that it is not easy to find a place for lunch in Silicon Valley, and there is a huge traffic jam on the road. It was already overcrowded. Looking at the plaid shirts worn by the people dining, McMillan knew that he had met his colleagues.

   "It's still early, otherwise I won't find a seat at all!"

  Finally came to a restaurant with a vacant seat, and the old man in the department immediately took Colin McMillan and others to sit there, and then generously ordered and paid for McMillan and his rookies.

   "I don't know why you choose to come here. ICQ hasn't raised their salaries this year, and their bonuses are a bit less than last year. The salaries of Cisco and Oracle have both increased by 15% this year!"

The "old man" in the ICQ development department complained to McMillan and the others, and then mentioned that he just bought a house in San Jose, and many employees who had already received ICQ options bought villas. Now They all started to play golf, which made Macmillan and other rookies envious.

After dinner, just after returning to ICQ headquarters, Colin McMillan felt that the atmosphere was a bit subtle. The ICQ executives, managers and others he knew all walked by in a hurry, and then met the president of ICQ Little Edgar Bronfman, without the personable manner in the media, little Edgar left in a hurry with a serious face.

  Colin McMillan didn't know what happened, until he was about to get off work, and finally heard the wind, and it didn't need to be heard. The portal website under ICQ had already revealed the news.

   The long-delayed Microsoft monopoly case suddenly came out with news that the federal judge Thomas Jackson who heard the Microsoft monopoly case suddenly signed a judgment, declaring that Microsoft does indeed have a monopoly!

Colin McMillan, who is still a rookie, is still unclear about the meaning of this verdict, but that day, the Nasdaq index hit its all-time high of 5133 points, but at the close, the index fell to 5049 points , although it is still the highest in history, it can also be seen that Microsoft's influence on Nasdaq!

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  【Return to 1995】【】

  As soon as the monopoly case judgment came out that day, the stock price of Microsoft, which had a market capitalization of US$600 billion, plummeted immediately, and the throne of the world's largest company by market capitalization that day was replaced by Cisco.

That night, when he returned to his rented apartment, he was about to fall asleep after playing a few games of "Grand Theft Auto" on the Sierra Online game platform. He heard that England and other places were planning to stop selling the game. There was also a lot of discussion, and Colin McMillan couldn't figure out what those people were thinking.

   At this moment, Colin McMillan habitually opened Yahoo and glanced at it, only to see a shocking piece of news.

   "The Washington Post questioned AOL Time Warner's financial fraud, CFO Jerry Nicholas announced his resignation!"

  Seeing this news, Colin Macmillan didn't know why, and suddenly his eyelids twitched. Although this news had nothing to do with ICQ, he always had an ominous premonition.

  The next day, as soon as he arrived at the ICQ headquarters, Colin McMillan heard again that the Federal Rights Commission and the Federal Department of Justice began to intervene in the financial investigation of AOL Time Warner.

When the leeks were still celebrating the record high of the Nasdaq index yesterday, after the Nasdaq opened, Internet stocks suddenly began to fall across the board. The stock of AOL Time Warner fell 11% that day, and ICQ also fell 5%. , Yahoo, and other stocks were also not spared.

  The entire Nasdaq index fell 9% that day!