Venture capital: Lessons from the dot-com days

THE NASDAQ 100 index hit rock bottom during intra-day trading on Oct 10, 2002, down 77 per cent from its all-time high on Mar 10, 2000. An estimated 100 million individual investors lost US$5 trillion in the stock market. It took more than 15 years for the tech-heavy index to revisit its peak.

Between such dot-bombed firms as Webvan and eToys and uniconned startups like Theranos and FTX, when it comes to venture capital (VC), the New Economy of the late 1990s and today’s gig economy share a few commonalities.

New lexicon, old tricks

Unlike public markets, VC is all about inside information. Proprietary deals are recipes for success. At the same time, early-stage investors usually follow one trend after another instead of pursuing predictable performance.