The dot-com bubble has been around since 1995, when Netscape went public and took only a few days to bring its market value to nearly $3 billion, completing the journey that General Electric had just completed decades earlier. The shock was not only stunned, but also ecstatic: the bankers, the big chaebols, venture capital firms, and private investors around the globe on Wall Street and Dune Avenue. Netscape's successful IPO has opened their eyes to a new investment field that is fast, convenient, with a short return period and a high rate of return. It has always been capital that follows profits, and this time is no exception, under the leadership of Hong Tao, he jumped into this pool of troubled waters.

Ford, for example, built the city of Rouge in the 20s of this century, bringing the way of large-scale assembly line production to the world. In the city of Rouge, more than 80,000 workers are busy in the factory area the size of 270 football fields every day, starting from a piece of ore and a soybean, and watching these raw materials gradually turn into brand new cars through machines, furnaces and processes, with an average time of only 49 seconds. At that time, the newspapers called Ford the creator, because everyone who has been to the Autostadt of Rouge is so impressed by its power that you can't help but bow down.

In order to achieve the most efficient industrial production, centralizing everything is the only secret. Ford had a dream of building his factory into a self-sufficient industrial empire, producing everything himself, even soybeans for paint, from Ford's farms. Ford is not alone in this dream. It runs through the entire industrial age of mankind, just like the outlook on life. Accompany you for a lifetime. At the same time, the Rockefeller Petroleum Group, General Electric Company, DuPont Chemical, Krupp Company...... They are all in this way, and they are all pursuing this way.

All the way up to the time of the internet. All the big businesses on the planet are still on this path. But with the advent of the Internet, a road suddenly appeared next to the road with no end in sight, and it seemed to be flatter and wider on it. Hong Tao once talked to Levin about Boeing's aircraft assembly line, and Hong Tao had to admire that Boeing was able to grow into an industry leader again after being split into three or four sections by the U.S. government, and this learning and adaptability is indeed too strong.

At this time, Boeing has used the Internet as a tool to basically realize the real-time monitoring of the global industrial chain. It doesn't matter if it's a supplier located anywhere in the world. As long as it is still on Earth, Boeing's headquarters will be able to use the Internet as a tool to synchronize its production. As a result, Boeing also has the ability to synchronize control, which can make this huge assembly line, which is longer than Ford Motor City, run smoothly, which is the perfect fusion of the post-industrial era and the nascent Internet era.

It's not just Boeing that sees the benefits of the Internet, it's a new thing that, just like when the steam engine was first invented, opened its mouth and pounced on every traditional field. Crazy to plunder the territory it thinks it should take over, unreasonable. And behind it, it is capital like Hong Tao, with the injection of capital. The speed at which the Internet grows is like a balloon, and one second ago it was only the size of a fist, and you blink an eye. It's the size of a watermelon.

In the process of such rapid growth, the vast majority of people do not have time to see many details clearly. I didn't have the time to calm down and carefully analyze the pros and cons, so some people simply didn't even look at it. As long as it is an Internet company, everyone throws money into it, as if they all have such a head as Hong Tao, and every time they invest, they will make a fortune. Venture capitalists, who were known for their rationality and boldness, were also blown away by this trend, rationality is gone, and all that is left is boldness, as long as you have an Internet idea and come up with a simple plan, they will dare to invest money at you. The most hot-headed thing is that this kind of blind investment, in the early days of the Internet bubble, was repeatedly successful.

At this time, Silicon Valley is simply a paradise for entrepreneurs, you don't need to take the plan to beg your grandfather and grandmother to plead, capital will take the initiative to come to your door to urge you to accept investment. Slowly, everyone thinks that this is still not too enjoyable, venture capital and those young entrepreneurs feel like Netscape, Yahoo, Amazon, as soon as the technology is developed, it is too slow to develop a year or two and then go public, so an investment model called "DOTCOM" came into being.

What is the DOTCOM model, simply put, it is a pure Internet company, basically no physical business, just with an idea or a catchy name, start financing. Instead of starting to expand the business, we started to burn money, using all kinds of means to hype up the idea, raise the company's popularity, and make the big pie of creativity known to everyone. At this point, it's time to prepare for an IPO, and once the IPO is successful, these founders will become millionaires, tens of millions, or even billionaires, and those venture capital will also get a good return. Its practical English meaning says that this matter is very troublesome, if it is changed to Chinese expression, it is enough five words, as soon as it is said that everyone can understand, it is called: empty gloves white wolf!

In fact, this thing was not invented in the Internet era, when the Dutch fried tulips, it was like a game of drumming and passing flowers, without any actual benefits, it was completely capital changing hands, and the price of a hand was a cut higher, and it has been turned like this. At this time, it is a bubble, and these prices do not represent the true value of the company, they are all blown out. Going around, there's always a head, and then there was such a day, some pick-up heroes finally understood, and then there was no more. These ideas and concepts that are purely blown out will become worthless in an instant, and the bubble that looks bright and beautiful will burst with a snap, and nothing will be left.

If it is replaced by the real economy, you buy a factory, no matter how you lose money, in the end it will at least have production lines, products, sales channels, and workers, and it will not be a flower in the mirror and a moon in the water. But an Internet company, like the tulip rhizomes that I bought back then, is extremely expensive when it is fried, and it is not worth the bullshit after falling into the dust.

At present, these bubbles have begun to blow up. According to the statistics obtained by Hong Tao's big database all over the world, since the second half of 98, an Internet company in Silicon Valley has been successfully listed every week, and 39 young millionaires are added every day. Some of them have just walked out of the university gate, and some of them have not even walked out of the university gate. Another figure is also very frightening, since 98, the total proportion of US venture capital invested in Internet companies accounted for 60% of all venture capital in the United States, while in 96, this figure was less than 30%, and in less than two years, it has more than doubled.

What's even more terrifying is that not only venture capital has entered a state of madness, but even more conservative traditional banks, investment companies, and private equity funds have begun to get involved in Internet companies, which means that the current US economy has begun to tilt towards the Internet. In this state, it is not that there is no voice of criticism, but every time someone stands up and tries to remind everyone not to be too impulsive, to be sensible, and to be cautious, the end result is that they are slapped by one after another successful listed Internet companies, so that fewer and fewer people are willing to stand up and be beaten.

Venture capital and traditional capital have also come, and they have come to eat the big cake of the Internet, so the traditional industry will lose the replenishment of fresh blood, and if it continues for a long time, it will lose blood and die. Whatever it is, once there is only one voice left, then you should be vigilant, or you should do the opposite. This is a precursor to impending madness, as the ancient Greek historian Herodotus warned us that if God wants to destroy him, he must first make him mad.

Hong Tao and his crystal orchid capital stood at the head of the tide at this time, or rather, it became a flag. How many young Americans are following in the footsteps of Hongtao's success? How many venture capitalists are still trying to replicate Hongtao's investment miracle in Netscape, Yahoo, Amazon, and other companies? The answer is innumerable. Hong Tao can't be said to have influenced a generation of Americans, but it can be regarded as influencing a large number of people in Silicon Valley, and this large number of people are still the elite or future of the United States.

Sometimes Hong Tao can't sleep, and he is a little afraid when he thinks of these things. If the dot-com bubble suddenly bursts one day, how will these elites who have lost all their money view themselves? It would be nice to say if they also lost a lot of money, but the most likely thing is that not only did they not lose money, but they also sold high and bought low, and took advantage of the bubble burst to make all the things that belonged to them their own, but the cost was only one-tenth or one-hundredth! At that time, will they march in the streets to demand that the US government hang themselves?

Whether it's praise or disparagement, he can't run away anyway. If he suddenly sells off his Internet industry stocks now, it will really cause big trouble, and the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Authority alone will investigate him on suspicion of insider trading, and he will definitely not let himself leave the United States in a few years. Since it can't run away, then Hong Tao doesn't plan to run, this bubble was triggered with the rise of Crystal Orchid Capital, and now, let Crystal Orchid Capital annihilate with it. Do things from the beginning to the end, and start from where you end. (To be continued......)