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Recent dot-com failures and layoffs will
leave more than devastated stock markets in their wake.
Online commerce is destined to continue, but the failing
fortunes of this new breed of wacky, zany and creative Internet
companies will likely mark the end of a generational experiment
in changing the world.
There are echoes of an earlier time in the
enthusiasms, excesses and rhetoric of the dot-com start-ups.
Rejection of established institutions and the creation of
a counterculture based on personal freedom, creativity,
new forms of community, and control over one’s own life
are themes that resonate from the experiences of another
generation in the 1960s.
Quoted in The New Republic last January,
recent Harvard Business School Graduate Phil Buchanan summed
up the spirit of the dot-com experiment in words that recall
Haight Ashbury’s Summer of Love. “It was as if people were
talking about a social movement when they talked about e-commerce
and the Internet. You would literally hear people say, ‘I
have to go to Silicon Valley and be part of this because
I don’t want to have to answer my grandchildren’s Where
were you when everything changed? and say I was working
at some boring old-economy company in the Northeast.’”
Generation X – born between 1961 and 1981
– the 13th generation in the United States, has
inherited a period in history when change is constant, careers
uncertain and security elusive. Faced with fewer options
than their parents, and a life with no guarantees, many
have become risk takers. A 1993 study conducted by Marquette
University and the University of Michigan found that 70
percent of new business start-ups were created by entrepreneurs
between the ages of 25 and 34.
The gulf between Generation X and its parents’
generation is profound. “No other generation in living memory
has come of age with such a sense of social distance – of
adults doing so little for them and expecting so little
from them,” William Strauss and Neil Howe said in their
book Generations: The History of America’s Future,
published in 1991.
A Time magazine article published in 1997
reported the results of a survey conducted by the Center
for Policy Alternatives, a Washington think tank: “72% of
18-24-year-olds believe this generation ‘has an important
voice, but no one seems to hear it.’ Asked how older generations
viewed them, their top answers were ‘lazy,’ ‘confused’ and
‘unfocused.’ Asked how they saw themselves, they replied
‘ambitious,’ ‘determined’ and ‘independent.’”
The creative frenzy of dot-com experimentation
presented a unique opportunity for Gen Xers to actualize
their ambition, determination and independence – creating
a casual, fluid and high-energy workplace that was radically
different from anything seen before in traditional companies.
The hallmark of these new economy ventures was their sheer
youth and boundless creativity. Twenty- and thirty-somethings
with visionary ideas had a real shot at unlimited riches.
More often than not, they succeeded. Just as important in
their own eyes, they had fun.
Most of these companies spent lavishly and
never made money. And while the establishment enthusiastically
bought into the dot-com field of dreams, in the end it had
less enthusiasm for risk and more interest in collecting
the promised returns on its investments. This February the
New York Times reported that the Nasdaq 100 was still trading
“at 811 times the combined earnings of the companies in
the index.”
While market reaction was long delayed,
it finally came with a vengeance. According to the Washington
Post, venture capital funding for Internet companies fell
45 percent last year, representing a drop of $6.5 billion.
Hundreds of companies have closed, laying off tens of thousands
of workers. It’s been a very hard landing and a tough adjustment
for a generation of workers who felt they had touched the
Holy Grail. As in the 1960s, it appears that the expected
revolution will never materialize.
“Last year 80 percent of the technical jobs
were creative, new. Now it’s, like, 80 percent practical,”
Paul Villella, president of HireStrategy.com, said in a
recent Washington Post article. “We’ve seen a complete reversal
in the job market. It’s not fun, innovative stuff anymore.
It’s more ‘we-gotta-get-it-done and make-it-work’ type work.”
The dot-com experiment is over and the signs
of retrenchment are growing. Bricks-and-mortar companies
look more attractive these days, and new economy revolutionaries
are returning to more traditional jobs. Many will take their
Internet skills back to mainstream companies, helping them
to adapt to a more slowly evolving online world. It’s not
the dream they fought for, and there’s little likelihood
now of windfall gains.
Writing in The New Republic last
January, Michelle Goldberg summed up their predicament.
“Many of my friends are out of work, three magazines I regularly
wrote for have folded in the last two months, and more will
likely follow. I’m still making a living, but the excitement
that crackled through San Francisco in the last couple of
years – the feeling that a new world was being born, that
exhilarating opportunities abounded, that I couldn’t forgive
myself for missing one single second of it – well, that’s
gone.”
While the world won’t miss the over-the-top
excesses of the dot-com start-ups, it surely needs the ambition,
determination and independence of these Internet pioneers.
Society and the workplace must find new places to apply
their energy, commitment and creativity. They’ve taught
us important lessons about living a dream and pushing the
boundaries, and there’s too much to lose if they choose
instead to drop out.
RESOURCES:
Business Week - March
20, 2001 -
Legacies of the Dot-Com Revolution
The New Republic – January
23, 2001 -
Fall to Grace
The New Republic – January
23, 2001 -
Where
do Gen-Xers Want to Go Today?
The Wall Street Journal
Online – November 15, 2000 -
Midlife
Crisis Hits Young Dot-Commers
Time Magazine - June 9,
1997 -
Great
Xpectations
Washington Post – April
20, 2001 –
Collapse
of Dot-Coms Stifles Tech Innovators
Washington Post – April
25, 2001 -
As
Dot-Coms Fall, so does Generation X’s Moment in Sun
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