OTHER CONTENT:
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Articles:
In advertising we trust
Boom and bust
Westheimer

Poetry:
Soft Artificial Curves
Hope

THIS ARTICLE:
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Boom and bust:
1  Icarus
2  Pipe dreams
3  Cosmic connection

Boom and bust. The words conjure black and white images of giddy 1929 flappers, flasks of bootleg booze and horrified stock traders watching their speculative fortunes fall like yesterday’s tickertape. Our generation’s boom and bust sent scooter-riding, Starbucks-sipping Americans clicking to Monster.com seeking ever bigger paychecks then bemoaning the loss of their stock options and plans to retire at 29.

Like Icarus, high-flyers rose magnificently only to fatally fall back to the old economy’s terra firma. Companies such as MarchFirst, Napster and Kozmo.com, stormtroopers of a seemingly inevitable economic and cultural blitzkrieg, crumbled under the weight of unattainable dreams—a modern tragedy worthy of the Greeks.

The sharp prick of reality that finally popped the inflated

bubble of VC funded, speculative start-ups shouldn’t have surprised anyone with enough smarts to run a lemonade stand. In hindsight, it’s appallingly obvious that profitless companies worth billions on paper and nursed along by Pollyannaish investors are about as competitively viable as a three-legged gazelle. A new and sustainable business model needed to emerge for legitimate and innovative ideas to prosper in the marketplace.

But how could a boom have gone so wrong? Were the dot com dreams of Net-driven innovation and boundless optimism for the future just the folly of a pampered, technologically obsessed American generation out of touch with economic reality? Sure, a little bit. But booms and busts are a phenomenon that can happen to anyone in any industry.

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