Song Yang looked at the "Barron's" magazine in his hand. This was not the first magazine to break the Internet crisis, but it was the most influential financial magazine.

The signs have already begun to appear. More than a week ago, the boss of the Federal Reserve had already let out the news and reported that the U.S. dollar may raise interest rates. He believed that the Internet and technology industries are too crazy now.

In recent years, rumors about the excessive fanaticism of the Internet have cropped up from time to time, but they have not caused much turmoil.

But this time, "Barron's" conducted a detailed investigation, without analyzing the so-called prospects of the Internet, users, traffic, visits and other things. It started from the most direct place, Internet companies will run out of money!

The basis of the Internet craze is that Wall Street banks and institutions have continuously burned money for the Internet, creating today's Nasdaq. But now, Wall Street can no longer burn, and has begun to harvest!

What is left of the Internet for money? Barron’s report is indeed a huge shock to the Internet industry.

"The Internet will not collapse, and neither will AOL. In the past few years, I have heard too much news about the collapse of the Internet, but every time, the Nasdaq index rises higher than before!"

Keith, co-CEO of AOL, spoke righteously in an interview with the media, indicating that everything at AOL is operating normally and that it has sufficient funds to deal with any troubles.

"Yes, Yahoo has enough funds to solve the problem. As we all know, Yahoo has just carried out a large share repurchase, which is enough to show the determination of Yahoo's board of directors. If it is not optimistic about Yahoo, who will repurchase more than 10 billion US dollars in value?"

Knife’s Yahoo stake?”

Yahoo President Kugel also said in an interview with a smile that after the news was released, Yahoo's stock price rose sharply and returned to a market value of US$150 billion.

Indeed, if Yahoo is not optimistic about Yahoo, why would Yahoo's board of directors spend more than 10 billion U.S. dollars to repurchase Song Yang's stake in Yahoo? Don't they know more about Yahoo than Yahoo's board of directors?!

Edgar Bronfman Jr. also accepted an exclusive interview with the "New York Times" on behalf of icq, responding to the "Internet Collapse Theory" rumors.

"Yes, every industry will experience troughs, but the Internet has never entered a trough. Only those who truly understand the Internet will understand what is happening on the Internet. This is a new technology that completely subverts tradition.

The way of shopping, communication and entertainment is just like the advent of the electrification era in the 1920s, when cars replaced horse-drawn carriages and electricity replaced steam engines!

I know some people are unwilling to be replaced, but history will not give anyone a chance to breathe!"

Edgar Bronfman Jr. has obviously done his homework. During the interview, he was personable and showed off the elegance of a big shot. When he mentioned the Internet, he was even more witty. He attributed the recent negative rumors on the Internet to traditional

Some people in the industry are unwilling to be replaced by the Internet and disappear into the garbage heap of history. They are trying to block the arrival of the Internet era without overestimating their own capabilities!

As soon as this interview came out, Edgar Bronfman Jr.'s remarks, fueled by the Internet industry, were reprinted by many media, which greatly enhanced Edgar Bronfman Jr.'s reputation.

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【Return to 1995】 【】

After a number of Internet giant companies issued statements one after another that everything was operating normally and there would be no so-called crash, although many Internet leeks ran away, there were still countless leeks who rushed into the Nasdaq one after another.

After all, money comes in too fast. A week ago, I bought a certain Internet stock with US$2,000. A week later, these stocks may be worth more than US$10,000. Who can refuse such a temptation and use US dollars?

Isn’t it nonsense to test human nature?

Although external pressure has appeared, it has not stopped the craze of the Internet. Instead, it has made major Internet companies even more fanatical, and it seems that they are about to stage the final madness.

Pest., an e-commerce platform selling pet products that was named by "Barron's" and commented that its cash flow may dry up, announced that it will invest heavily in advertising in more than 15 major cities in America in the second half of this year, and won the next year's super

According to media statistics, the advertisements invested by Pest website are twenty times of their revenue. It is obvious that Pest website is betting heavily that they can win the favor of investors, and the leeks will not abandon it!

Not only the pest website, but also the webvan website, which specializes in food delivery, announced that it will invest one billion US dollars to expand its market to 26 cities in America and overseas!

Even though there seems to be constant storms against the Internet, everything in the Internet industry seems to be business as usual. Computer developers who graduated from Stanford and major universities are still in short supply, because dozens of new Internet companies appear in Silicon Valley every day, and programmers

It is impossible to cultivate it so quickly.

This allows a programmer who graduated from college to get four or five recruitment contracts from large companies as soon as he leaves school. As long as he signs, he can get an annual salary of 80,000, 100,000 US dollars or even more. You know

, even more than 20 years later, the salary of programmers in Silicon Valley is only at this level, and the annual salary of ordinary people in America is only US$30,000 to 50,000...

Not to mention, as soon as these newcomers join an Internet company, work for a few months, and if they are lucky enough to go public, they will be able to get options and equity awards worth millions of dollars. Some talented programmers will come up with something.

It’s a genius idea. As long as you go out and find a venture capital company, you can instantly build an Internet company worth tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars!

Colin Macmillan, who just graduated from the University of San Jose, walked into the icq headquarters building. Like his predecessors, Macmillan also chose to enter icq after graduation. After all, it was established by his senior brother, the University of San Jose.

Most of those who graduate will choose to enter companies such as ICQ, Paypal, Feita, Xueleshan Online Platform, eBay, Amazon, Wikipedia and most recently Google.

Colin Macmillan wants to enter Paypal or Google, because Google has not yet been listed. After he goes there, if he can catch up with Google's listing, then maybe he can become a millionaire or tens of millions in a year or two.

rich man.

Feita and eBay have been listed, not to mention the giant company icq, but the strange thing is that starting from the second half of this year, Paypal and Google did not release too many places, leaving him no chance to apply. Finally, he joined icq, icq

Although it is unlikely that he will be given stock options or the like right away, remuneration, benefits, etc. are all available in Silicon Valley.

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【Return to 1995】 【】

Colin MacMillan entered the development department of icq, responsible for maintaining icq's operations, developing new features, etc. He was busy until noon, and Colin Macmillan, led by the "old man" in the department, went to eat outside the company in advance.

In the evening, the department head will hold a party for these newbies.

In places like Silicon Valley, parties have become a trend. The party held today for Colin MacMillan and his new recruits cost around US$300,000 to US$50,000. If department managers attended, the cost would be US$100,000.

For a dollar or more, parties are more than just drinking. As the highest-paid people in America, they hold parties and invite models and the like to participate. Sometimes they also invite Hollywood starlets, so the cost is naturally expensive.

After leaving the icq headquarters building, the "old man" from the development department took Colin Macmillan and several others and rushed towards a Western restaurant. icq provided lunch, which was delivered by a third-party catering company every day, but there were many

icq staff no longer like to eat those delivered lunches, but go out to restaurants to eat by themselves, for which icq will also provide a meal fee.

Colin Macmillan had long heard that it was difficult to find a place for lunch in Silicon Valley and there was a huge traffic jam on the road. This time he saw it. The streets had long been blocked by water. He went to several expensive restaurants one after another, but nothing happened.

It was already overcrowded, and looking at the plaid shirts worn by the diners, MacMillan knew he had met his colleagues.

“I came early, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to find a seat!”

Finally, we came to a restaurant with empty seats. The old man from the department immediately took Colin Macmillan and others to sit there, and then he generously took the order and paid for MacMillan and other rookies.

"I don't know why you choose to come here. ICQ has not had a salary increase this year, and the bonus is less than last year. The salaries of Cisco and Oracle have increased by 15% this year!"

The "old man" in the icq development department complained to MacMillan and the others, and then mentioned that he had just bought a house in San Jose, and many employees who had already received icq options had purchased villas. Now,

They all started playing golf, and what they heard made the rookies such as MacMillan envious.

After dinner, as soon as he returned to the icq headquarters, Colin Macmillan felt that the atmosphere was a little subtle. The executives, managers and other people he knew from icq were all walking past in a hurry, and then he met the president of icq.

Little Edgar Bronfman did not have the graceful demeanor shown in the media. Little Edgar left in a hurry with a serious face.

Colin MacMillan didn't know what was going on. It wasn't until he was about to get off work that he finally heard the news. Needless to say, the portal website owned by icq had also broken the news.

In the long-delayed Microsoft monopoly case, news suddenly came out that federal judge Thomas Jackson, who was hearing the Microsoft monopoly case, suddenly signed a verdict, declaring that Microsoft indeed had monopoly behavior!

Colin MacMillan, who was still a rookie, was still unclear about the meaning of this verdict, but that day, the Nasdaq index originally hit an all-time high of 5133 points. At the close, the index fell to 5049 points.

, although it is still the highest in history, we can also see Microsoft’s influence on Nasdaq!

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【Return to 1995】 【】

As soon as the verdict of the monopoly case came out that day, the stock price of Microsoft, with a market value of US$600 billion, immediately plummeted. That day, the throne of the world's largest company by market value was replaced by Cisco.

That night, when he returned to his rented apartment and played a few games of "Grand Theft Auto" on the Sierra Online Game Platform, he was about to fall asleep when he heard that England and other places were preparing to stop selling the game.

There was a lot of discussion, and Colin Macmillan couldn't figure out what those people were thinking.

At this moment, Colin Macmillan habitually opened Yahoo and took a look, and he saw a shocking piece of news.

"The Washington Post questioned AOL Time Warner's financial fraud, and Chief Financial Officer Jerry Nicholas announced his resignation!"

When he saw this news, Colin Macmillan didn't know why, but his eyelids suddenly jumped. Although this news had nothing to do with icq, he always had an ominous premonition.

The next day, as soon as he arrived at the icq headquarters, Colin Macmillan heard again that the Federal Rights Commission and the Federal Department of Justice had begun to intervene in the financial investigation of AOL Time Warner.

While the leeks were still celebrating yesterday's record high for the Nasdaq index, after the Nasdaq opened, Internet stocks suddenly began to fall across the board. AOL Time Warner's stock fell 11% that day, and ICQ also fell 5%.

, Yahoo, and other stocks were also not spared.

The entire Nasdaq index fell 9% that day!
Chapter completed!