A year after the Net bubble burst, blame game begins
By Rachel Konrad and Dawn Kawamoto
Staff Writers, CNET News.com
March 8, 2001, 4:00 a.m.
Internet evangelists once boasted that the new medium would redistribute wealth, enable around-the-clock communication, revamp the industrial economy's supply chain, and otherwise change the world for the better.
Today, historians are painting a far less flattering portrait of the era and its players--who, in turn, are engaged in an ugly game of finger-pointing aimed at placing responsibility as far from themselves as possible.
Some are accepting responsibility for their roles in the fall of the digital economy, in hopes of avoiding a similar disaster in the future. But far more are blaming high-tech companies, industry analysts, Wall Street brokers, news media, and even the hapless individual investor for inflating the Internet bubble that burst a year ago Saturday.
As all parties assess the damage wrought by the market meltdown, 20-20 hindsight shows some startlingly clear mistakes--beginning with a preponderance of money in search of investment, no matter how dubious the venture.
Sizing up the market's swift demise
A growing number of academics, analysts and executives are placing blame, cracking history books, rethinking careers, and otherwise attempting to determine how the Internet Economy went from boom to bust so quickly.
The Banker
Since the bubble burst, Tony Meneghetti's time is much less frenetic--not entirely by choice.
The Angel Investor
Steve Miller, who backs start-ups with his own money, saw his wings quickly clipped.
The Venture Capitalist
For Peter Morris, the bust has caused life to slow to a more reasonable pace.
The Entrepreneur
When the venture capital dried up, Charles Corbalis went through a funding nightmare.
Dirty dozen
Even the biggest tech names have proved to be no refuge for investors since the Nasdaq peaked March 10, 2000.
| Company | 3/10/00 price | 3/05/01 price* | % change |
| Yahoo | $178.06 | $22.19 | -88 |
| Gateway | $62.50 | $16.07 | -74 |
| Cisco Systems | $68.19 | $23.08 | -66 |
| eBay | $96.63 | $38.00 | -61 |
| Hewlett-Packard | $73.47 | $30.38 | -59 |
| Oracle | $40.81 | $17.00 | -58 |
| Sun Microsystems | $47.09 | $20.94 | -56 |
| Dell | $51.25 | $23.44 | -54 |
| Intel | $60.00 | $30.38 | -49 |
| Microsoft | $101.00 | $57.44 | -43 |
| Compaq | $28.44 | $20.07 | -29 |
| America Online | $58.63 | $43.80 | -25 |
| * adjusted for splits | |||
| Source: CNET Investor | |||
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