Dot-com bubble happened during a period where everything was pessimistic and in decline except computers and the internet. A lot of people were quitting well-paying jobs to found or join startups.

Effect of dot-com bubble burst on people’s outlook:

• treat the future as indefinite. dismiss long-term plans as extreme. Promote globalization stay away from technology.
• Silicon valley thinking after dot-com crash:
  • incremental advances over grand visions
  • be lean (unplanned) and flexible. planning is arrogant and rigid. iterate agnostically until it works.
  • improve on competition. new markets are dangerous.
  • focus on product development. sales and distribution will follow. advertising is wasteful.

This lead people away from Definite-and-optimistic-outlooks-of-life.

It is easy to see why the thinking is wrong, and the opposite principles make more sense. Some examples:

• Competition is usually bad for a business
• You-need-a-great-distribution-plan-or-your-company-will-fail
• Everyone-underestimates-sales-because-no-one-likes-to-be-sold-and-sales-tries-hard-to-stay-hidden