'When we read about these spectacularly successful young people - who through their boldness and vision . . . have created the greatest economic boom the world has ever seen, thereby benefiting all - we cannot help but express our gratitude as follows: 'I hope they get leprosy'.' Dave Barry, columnist
DAVE BARRY'S SAGE WORDS aside, local Merrill Lynch analyst David Cui perhaps summed up the dotcom apocalypse best: 'We are in the fear phase of the cycle.'
The other phase, of course, being naked, grasping, unfettered greed.
Log on to the Internet and you can smell the terror seeping through the ether. Upstart start-ups that were here one day are dot-gone the next. Pimply moguls are daily dethroned, as seers - who just months ago were singing their praises - wipe the egg from their faces and predict a bloodbath. Half of Hong Kong's Internet companies, we are now told, will be toast within months.
Listen carefully and you can hear the pop and crackle of paper profits going up in smoke. Dotcom has become a dirty word as the venture capitalists withdraw their backing and panicked investors sprint for the safer strictures of the old economy.
It seems the information superhighway had some unforeseen twists and potholes. Hard to believe that a year ago the talk was of paradigm shifts and raging bulls. People variously watched with glee or green-eyed envy as the Nasdaq climbed from 2,000 just 18 months ago, to 3,000 by November, 4,000 by December and 5,000 by March before taking its spectacular tumble, when almost half was wiped from the index's value in a matter of days.
Now, some of the most popular sites are those providing succour to burned entreprenerds. Not to mention the I-told-you-so merchants, wallowing in schadenfreude, such as the charmingly named F***edcompany.com, which lovingly documents each high-flier's graceless plummet to earth. The wired world has woken up to a king-sized hangover, as investors wonder why they threw money at companies that had no business plan, no track record, and no hope of ever turning a profit.