Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 95% certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Eisenberg: Post-1999 Tech Crash Occurred in Two Phases Including Fiber Optics

Michael Eisenberg · 20VC: Bill Gurley and Michael Eisenberg on The First Signs of an Impending Bust, What Happens with a Market Crash, How Do Public Markets Impact Private Valuations & The Biggest Lessons from 20 Years Investing in Venture · Dec 6, 2021 · at 7:28

Michael Eisenberg, Co-founder and Equal Partner at Aleph, discusses historical market drawdowns during a conversation on tech bubbles.

0:00 / 0:15exact quote · 15.5s

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“People forget that there were two phases to the bubble coming undone. There was the.com, which has become famous because of the pets.com commercial, right? So that's what we all think.com.com. But there was a second one in fiber optic communications, which was all the rage. And it happened after that was the second phase.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

The collapse of the tech bubble following 1999 occurred in two distinct phases: first the dot-com crash, followed by a second crash in fiber optic communications.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

Historical market data and financial records confirm that the tech bubble unraveling occurred in two distinct chronological phases. Phase 1 involved the collapse of consumer dot-com startups and equity-financed web services during 2000 (e.g., Boo.com, Pets.com). Phase 2 occurred in 2001–2002 with the collapse of the telecom and fiber optic sector, characterized by massive debt defaults, overcapacity ('dark fiber'), and major corporate bankruptcies including 360networks (June 2001), Global Crossing (January 2002), and WorldCom (July 2002).

Dot-com startup failures peaked in mid-to-late 2000, whereas major fiber optic and telecom bankruptcies (360networks, Global Crossing, WorldCom) occurred distinctly later in 2001 and 2002.
Capital rotated temporarily into fiber optic infrastructure in mid-2000 before the overcapacity and debt crisis triggered the second wave of collapses in 2001–2002.

Checked against

[1] wikipedia.org [2] wikipedia.org [3] corporatefinanceinstitute.com [4] internethistory.org [5] princeton.edu [6] rootbyte.tech [7] technostatecraft.com [8] medium.com

assessed as of 2026-07-23

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

Mentioned

dot-com bubble fiber optic communications

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