History is maybe not a great a measure in this case. In the late 90's/early 2000's the entire US economy was in a major boom, not just the tech industry. Then in 2000 the economy came crashing down, as economies tend to do about every 8-10 years. The bottom falling out of the tech sector was a fairly significant contributor to the downturn, and then 9/11 happened shortly there after further hampering the recovery process. The US federal reserve worked to stimulate the economy by keeping interest rates. The economy started to flourish again in the mid-2000s. But then those low interest rates greatly contributed to the next crash when the housing bubble burst in 2008 (8 years after the last major economic downturn!).
As the graphs in this article show the tech industry has recovered at a fairly constant rate since 2000. There was a drop in funding in 2008, corresponding to the drop in the rest of the US economy. The tech industry managed to bounce back from the that incredibly quickly, resulting in what everyone is now saying is a bubble.
However, looking at the entire situation, not just the tech industry, we're in wildly different economic times now than we were in 2000. The US economy as a whole is still fairly depressed, while the tech sector is sort of an anomaly that's doing extremely well.
It's certainly a possibility that this is a tech bubble that'll burst and drop the tech industry back in line with the rest of the economy. However, to look at history as a guide once more, it's much more likely that the rest of the economy will continue to recover and enter boom cycle (which shockingly also happens roughly once every 8-10 years) and catch up to the tech industry. At which point a lot more than just tech companies and investors will have a lot of money to spend. Until, of course, something else triggers the next major economic down turn sometime between 2016 and 2020.
As the graphs in this article show the tech industry has recovered at a fairly constant rate since 2000. There was a drop in funding in 2008, corresponding to the drop in the rest of the US economy. The tech industry managed to bounce back from the that incredibly quickly, resulting in what everyone is now saying is a bubble.
However, looking at the entire situation, not just the tech industry, we're in wildly different economic times now than we were in 2000. The US economy as a whole is still fairly depressed, while the tech sector is sort of an anomaly that's doing extremely well.
It's certainly a possibility that this is a tech bubble that'll burst and drop the tech industry back in line with the rest of the economy. However, to look at history as a guide once more, it's much more likely that the rest of the economy will continue to recover and enter boom cycle (which shockingly also happens roughly once every 8-10 years) and catch up to the tech industry. At which point a lot more than just tech companies and investors will have a lot of money to spend. Until, of course, something else triggers the next major economic down turn sometime between 2016 and 2020.