WhereIsAtlas · Economic event

The Dot-Com Bubble

When any company with '.com' in its name was worth a fortune

Concluded — Ran roughly 1995–2000; the NASDAQ lost 78% of its value in the crash that followed.

The dot-com bubble was a five-year episode in which the public markets priced the internet as if the future had already arrived. Netscape's 1995 IPO — shares soaring from $28 to $75 on day one for a company losing money — lit the fuse; IPOs with no profits, no products and names ending in '.com' routinely doubled overnight.

The NASDAQ Composite climbed from under 1,000 in 1995 to an intraday peak of 5,132.52 on 10 March 2000. Then the air left: rates rose, cash ran out, and companies like Pets.com, Webvan and eToys collapsed within months of listing. By October 2002 the index had fallen 78 percent, erasing roughly $5 trillion in paper wealth.

The paradox is what came next: the bubble's wreckage fertilised everything. The fibre laid during the mania, the talent set loose by layoffs, and the survivors that kept building — Amazon, eBay, Google (founded 1998) — powered the real internet economy. Historians now treat the era less as a fraud than as the internet's premature, expensive adolescence.

Timeline

  1. Aug 1995 — Netscape lights the fuse: Netscape's IPO soars 108% on day one and makes the web a Wall Street religion.
  2. 1997–98 — Irrational exuberance: Amazon lists at $18; theGlobe.com jumps 606% on its first day — a record.
  3. Nov 1999 — Pets.com socks everything: A $12 million Super Bowl ad campaign for a company spending more per order than it earns.
  4. Mar 10, 2000 — The top: NASDAQ closes near 5,048 — a high it will not see again for 15 years.
  5. Apr 2000 — The unravelling: Rate rises and cash burn trigger a rout; micro-cap tech shares are wiped out.
  6. Sep 2001 — Webvan implodes: The $1.2 billion online grocer shuts down after burning most of its capital in two years.
  7. Oct 2002 — The bottom: NASDAQ bottoms near 1,114 — down 78% from the peak. The era is over.
  8. 2004 → — The survivors win: Amazon and eBay cross into profitability; the infrastructure and lessons seed Web 2.0.

Quick facts

Period
c. 1995 – March 2000
NASDAQ peak
5,132.52 (Mar 10, 2000)
Peak-to-trough loss
≈ 78%
Wealth erased
≈ $5 trillion
Famous failures
Pets.com, Webvan, eToys, theGlobe.com
Famous survivors
Amazon, eBay, Priceline, Google (1998)

Sources

  1. Wikipedia: Dot-com bubble — Wikipedia (2026-01-10)
  2. Dot-com bubble, 20 years on — BBC News (2025-12-01)
  3. NASDAQ historical data — NASDAQ (2025-12-01)

Related: myspace · wework · theranos · altavista · netscape · nortel