f*ckedcompnay.com chronicled the demise of the dot.nothings as it was happening. Fooseball, Aeron chairs, free spring water, and 100-hour weeks to run a website; Something that many bright 14-year-olds do as a hobby.
The first thing that would happen when the hapless investors dumped money on a startup was that everyone hired someone to do their job. They in turn did likewise.
When Netscape started things with their IPO, I used to argue, "OK, they have a product they give away free, have no sales and no business plan. How are they possibly worth $150 million?"
Yes, I missed the opportunity to treble my money based on what amounted to an Albanian Pyramid Scam, and also missed the opportunity of losing it all.
There are still good IT Jobs. Heavens knows, the ones I still see working at my place cannot possibly be an example! There MUST be lots of good ones out there who would be grateful for a stable real job. Maybe the company does not want to pay anything for an "Overhead" department, but for whatever reason, I am confident that surely there are many IT jobs around if we could ever get the embedded bad ones to just go home.
I do know people from some of these startups. One I know left a Fortune 500 to get a piece of the action. It did not last long, and was based on a stupid idea, and briefly flourished because there were a few really stupid investors left.
So in all honesty, when we hear of the loss of all the IT jobs, many were not real jobs to begin with. The recent grads they hired, including a few friends and relatives of mine, had not the faintest idea what a workday was in the first place, and simply knew no better. Of COURSE they worked nights, weekends and holidays. Of COURSE the Nice Company, to lighten their burden, installed pool and ping pong tables in recognition of the fact that the kids were giving up their lives and marriages.
The whole era was a shameful episode.
No. But it wasn't Clinton's either.