Photo Courtesy of EXANTE

In 2000 I was at Deutsche Bank, building a new trading platform, watching friends leave one by one for startups that were going to make them rich. They had stock options. They had retirement mapped out at forty. I stayed at the bank and felt the envy of a man doing sensible work while everyone around him seemed to be getting away with something.

Then the crash came, and the something turned out to be nothing. Pets.com went from a Super Bowl advert in January to liquidation in November. The Nasdaq lost most of its value. Thousands of companies died; the web did not. It carried on and built Google. I was still at the bank, and I have rarely been so grateful for a boring decision.

I mention this because I have seen the current mood before, and I recognise the smell.

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