The counterpoint to Mike’s post…

You have work very hard to get there!

What if you went back *just briefly* and made some good stock picks? :P

Sam: I bought Apple at 12 back then.

The problem is I sold it at 22. It then went up to more than 200 (it split since then).

I had a pretty rough 2002 myself.

But I do think there's a way to avoid the kind of frenzy we're in now, it's not healthy, and it seems unless we get better at investing in the next big thing this boom will eventually run out of gas and it will be bust times again.

Yup, 2002 was a rough year for me also. Last year I worked in the IT biz.

Rex

Hey as long as we're comiserating.

I haven't done this recently, but, seriously, ALL this happened to me in a year around 2000-2001

1. My father had a heart attack
2. I changed jobs twice (including a few weeks with no pay at a startup)
3. I moved twice.
4. My wife had surgery.
5. My job performance plummeted,
6. 9/11
7. My wife died (unrelated to the others).
8. There was more, too, though abviously those win out.

All this when I was 24-25 years old. I took one of those "stressful life events" counter things, where if you score over 100 your supposed to get some medical attnetion for stress and got about 500. I had spontaneous nosebleeds, spots in my vision, massive headaches, and many other physical ailments related to stress.

It all makes me SO much more appreciative of everything I have now! I'm married again, with a child on the way about the same time as you, Robert. I've been steadily (and gainfully) employed, do very well at work, my family is all healthy, I have lived in one place for 2.5 years (longest time since I was in High School), and I have some wonderful friends and pets.

It's pretty much all uphill from 2000-2001.

Check out this cat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D9uo38EUWE

In 2001, I was doing exactly what I'm doing today, minus the nice office suite, in house servers, ricoh copier and water cooler.

I remember getting an IM from my friend about 9/11, turning on CNN.

I think I was actually making more money back then though. At any rate, not much has changed here. Same old same old, except it's a SQL server and not a mail exchanger this time.
If anything the environment for ISVs was actually much better in 2001 than it is now, because the .COM bust had not fully propagated yet.

did www.podtech.net get attacked? It looks like it got hacked with that javascript exploit...

Interesting. Mike's perspective is a reflection on the industry and your's is a reflection on your life. These are two very different opinions.

here's my since 2001 list:

1. I drove my old car into a pond, and submerged the engine.
2. I got a new used car.
3. I sold a lot of intellectual property
4. I worked on an IBM subaccount
5. I incorporated and later got an office suite with 5 offices, and 4 employees
6. I fired 2 of them
7. I bought a brand new company car.
8. Our vice president and my other board member left to join the FBI
9. I joined a health club
10. I refurbished my home recording studio with digital gear
11. I stopped using windows in 2002 as my OS

I literally feel like 2001 was yesterday though. It feels exactly the same.

If I could go back to 2002 I think I should have taken that job at Bioware.

Life has ups and downs, and is full of surprises.

Sometimes my life feels like Fabio did on that fateful Busch Gardens roller coaster ride, when he got hit in the face by a low flying duck.

Better Days to All!

Not wanting to make a list, all I can say is that life is just great and keeps getting better, even though my par is at deaths door and my wife is expecting our second child :-!

2001, yeah that was a toughy all right; sold the house, went naked for awhile in France eventually finding solitude and a good work/life balance in Ireland. Now I live near a farm, work in IT three days and fly a microlight (ultralight to you yanks) out of a small farm strip :-) Lot's of endless space to roam in. Also gives you a new perspective on life when looking down on the earth. After that I run about 20 miles a week, which is something I recommend to any of you lard arses out there who spend too much time at the keyboard - certainly keeps the pork down I can tell you. ROFL

I absolutely hated the 90s and the early 00s. They were bad times. My favorite period of my life was the early 80s and now.

A man is nothing more than the sum of his experiences. I now have a child and I see things differently than before. I moved from the big city to a small town. My paycheck dropped by 75%. I'm far happier than I was. I escaped the rat race. IF I could afford it, I'd live on an island somewhere and really get remote.

....and another son that rocks...

I'm not sure how talking about our personal lives regarding 2001 vs now can be used as a "couterpoint" to what's going on in "the valley" right now. Your personal lives may be better now than in 2001, but I'm sure that others' personal lives are worse today than in 2001. (My own personal life is worse today than in 2001 due to health issues.) Neither has any relation to Silicon Valley, and can't seriously be used as a counterpoint to Mike's post.

Patrick: that's a given! But you were a good thing in my life in 2001 AND now! I'm very proud of you, by the way. Keep it up!

1. Also got laid off.
2. Also stopped using Windows.
3. Realized I didn't actually *need* my work income and moved to the beach.
4. 9/11
5. Stopped drinking, got religion, started trying to reform a drunk friend (succeeded after 3 years).

Indeed a mixed bag. But in general the disruption was good.

As I've stated before though, I think there is TOO MUCH concentration of identically thinking people in Silicon Valley, a "monoculture" if you will. Strength and weakness in that. As a ceter for certain tech activities it is fine, as the primary place where all of it gets started it sucks. The area *used* to be a nice place to visit. I'm not too sure any more. There are plenty of coastal and otherwise pleasant communities that would make excellent SV II, and III type locations. The bubble in SV I needs to permanently burst before these places can get any traction I think. In this day and age the notion that we all need to be in one geographical area is ridiculous. Open Source is doing just fine planet-wide. No reason the commercial aspects of Silicon Valley can't do likewise (other than inertia, which the SV inhabitants are much more succeptible to than they know).