[freshfunk]

Not OP but first off I'd say that while some things feel similar, I don't think we're close to how bad it was back then if you look at the magnitude of the fall out. So take these answers understanding that things were worse back then.

1. It felt like a nuclear winter for tech jobs between 2000/2001 and 2004/2005. Jobs were available but it was way more competitive to get them and you were a lot less likely to get that dream job. You either settled for a crappier job or you changed directions. Many younger people just went back to school (get the master, law degree, etc.) as an alternative.

It felt like the party was over. All the great company perks disappeared. Traffic on freeways disappeared. The mood was very flat. It wasn't sexy being in tech like it is today. Nowadays people just talk about TC or stock. That kind of talk disappears.

2. Like I mentioned above, it was about a 3-5 year period. Again, not all situations are the same. But whenever you have large macroeconomic problems, they take time to sort out. It also depends on how quickly the downside factors resolve themselves. The longer it takes to solve those, the longer a recovery is dragged out.

It also depends on what the growth engine is for pulling things back up. Back then, there was a resurgence in internet business starting around 2005 when "web 2.0" got popular and many new businesses came on the scene. This includes social networking, ecommerce, web publishing.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

That's a fairly good explanation.

My company made imaging peripherals, and were very conservative, so they weren't on a bandwagon. Our jobs were OK.

I feel like the .com crash was pretty telegraphed. People who could spell "HTTP" were being hired as Chief In Charge Of Everything Web Gods, and they were spending company money like candy.

It cleared the way for companies like Google and MySpace (which met its end, not long after).

My company got fat on consumer cameras, which were destroyed in about 2010, after the smartphone revolution started to really get going. The next seven years were kind of a mad scramble for market share, while the managers kept doing everything but admitting that they really screwed the pooch, by not anticipating the rise of cellphone cameras.

Come to think of it, there is a lot of that "Nobody saw it coming" language, here, as well.

I am very fiscally conservative, and my indicator of a coming reckoning, was watching all the Scrooge McDucks, diving into their piles of money. That doesn't end well (see: 1929).

[dver]

Mostly the same points.

In early 2000 within a few months the traffic on 680 south over the Sunol Grade(main road to the SV from points NE) went from dead stopped at 4:30am, to no traffic at all at 7:30am. It was breathtaking.

I managed to hole up in a consulting gig in manufacturing. We had our rates shaved 20% and felt lucky. Everyone who had left for greener pastures called up looking for work over the next year. I mean everyone. It was sad.

As described above, there were no jobs to had.

I recall a new building put up around the 580/680 interchange. I used it as my canary, when it was occupied I would call the recovery happening. It was empty from 2000-2003.

2008 was bad for other sectors, tech had issues, but nothing like 2000.

What's going on now isn't the same. There are specific pullbacks. Twitter is about the Elon buyout. In other places there is money. And in my manufacturing universe I'm having trouble finding people.

[tqi]

Super interesting, thanks for sharing!