The 'big bang' of the dot-com era: Netscape's stock price doubled on the day of its initial public offering

More than 650 companies went public in the US in 1996

As the dot-com bubble reached its peak, most dot-com companies went public with little proof of being profitable and were often overvalued. In 1999, the Nasdaq's price-to-earnings ratio (a tool used to determine a stock's value that divides its price by earnings) hit 90.2, signaling that many companies were operating at a net loss. Startups promised investors that more time and money would help scale their businesses and become profitable.

The dot-com bubble burst in 2000 when the Nasdaq dropped more than 76% in roughly 2 years

Between 1995 and 2000, the Nasdaq Composite index jumped from roughly 1,000 to 5,000 amid excitement over new internet companies. As venture capitalists dumped money into startups, those same companies struggled to turn a profit, leading to a bubble. The Nasdaq wouldn't reach its former high until 2015.

The dot-com bubble burst in the early 2000s

If you’ve heard of companies like Google and Yahoo, you’re already partially familiar with the dot-com bubble: a period from roughly 1995 to 2001, when internet companies were the hottest thing in venture capital. The “bubble” part of the term refers to the industry’s eventual implosion.

Nike went public in 1980, and the first share sold at $22

Nike stock plummeted in the four years that followed the company’s initial public offering (IPO). The company’s deal with Michael Jordan in 1984 ultimately revived investor confidence.

The dot-com boom made Mark Cuban a billionaire

Cuban co-founded AudioNet with Todd Wagner in 1995 before it became Broadcast.com—a web app that allowed people to listen to sports commentary on their computers if they couldn't watch a game. In 1999, Yahoo bought Broadcast.com for $5.7B. By the time the market crashed, Cuban had already sold most of his stock in the company and had become a billionaire.

Many dot-com companies spent some investor money on expensive parties

Parties hosted by dot-com companies were known to be extravagant and expensive. Technology companies in the Bay Area hosted between 15 and 20 parties a week on average, which cost between $30K and $50K on average.

Read about the day Palantir went public in 2020

After more than 15 years in business, Palantir held its initial public offering (IPO) via a direct listing—meaning the company didn't rely on underwriters to assess the initial trading price or stock value. Palantir's stock ended the day trading 31% higher than the reference price.

Some companies like to make their IPO day antics unique

An article details some of the wildest bell-ringing day stunts in recent history, from Clifford the Big Red Dog ringing the opening bell to one company's employees roasting marshmallows in a campfire on Wall Street as it went public.

Google had a quirky, auction-based IPO

In its sixth year, Google's shareholders reached a size where regulators would require the company to publicly report its financials. This prompted the company to go public through an unconventional style: the Dutch auction. The company auctioned its shares starting from a high price and dropping to a lower level.

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

Pets.com is one of the most emblematic dot-com companies

Pets.com—an e-commerce pet store webpage—is a prime example of dot-com companies burning through investments. Despite being a popular and well-known brand, the company struggled to generate enough revenue to become profitable. After raising approximately $82.5M in its February 2000 initial public offering, Pets.com filed for bankruptcy in November of that same year.

A list of public companies' filings

To go public, a company has to file a registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, also known as the SEC. You can find these filings on the SEC’s website to learn more about a company’s share pricing before its IPO date.

The history of the commercialization of the internet, from ARPANET to NSFNET and beyond

NSFNET was launched in 1986 by the National Science Foundation as the first network available to all researchers, connecting them to a system of supercomputer facilities. Despite growing from 2,000 computers in 1985 to 2 million by 1993, the rapid expansion of commercial internet services led to NSFNET's decommissioning by 1995.

The world’s first publicly traded company was the United East India Co.

In an effort to best Spain and gain access to valuable trade in Asia, the Dutch Republic launched the VOC, or the United East India Co. The company held an initial public offering in 1602, allowing “subscribers” to choose how much they wanted to invest in the new venture. It was open to all residents of the republic, making this the first opportunity for retail investors in the world.

Read about when Nasdaq partnered with the London Stock Exchange in 1992, and other key moments in Nasdaq history

The partnership became the first intercontinental linkage between capital markets, setting the stage for worldwide trading amid increasing globalization. Nasdaq separated from its parent company in 2006, becoming a fully independent licensed national securities exchange. A year later, it added the Scandinavian-based Exchange, OMX.

See a ranking of the most popular websites on the World Wide Web from 1995 to 2023

America Online's homepage was the most popular website through mid-2021, when the Yahoo homepage took over and, shortly afterward, became the first website to reach 1 billion monthly visits. It would not be dethroned until early 2006 by Google, a major player in the search engine market.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

Steve Jobs founded NeXT while on a break from Apple

While Steve Jobs was on a hiatus from working at Apple, he founded a company called NeXT and helped lead the release of its operating system NeXTSTEP. The operating system was used to create the first app store of sorts, as well as the first web browser.

The history of Reddit, the front page of the internet

The hyperactive online forum and social media platform has transformed since 2006 from a simple link-sharing site to a behemoth in digital media. Topping off its ascendancy, Reddit went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2024, solidifying its future amid a shifting technological climate. Dive into Reddit's nearly two decades of growth with this detailed timeline.

Bumble's valuation peaked at roughly $13B around the time of its 2021 IPO

As of April 17, 2026, its market cap was roughly $550M. Experts attribute the decline to a multitude of factors, including slowing user growth and increased competition from Match Group-owned dating apps like Hinge.

Why does the stock market matter?

Open any newspaper, turn on your local TV news station, or listen to a daily business radio segment, and you’re bound to hear about how the stock market is performing. Netflix created a 17-minute (free) explainer that dives deep into the nitty-gritty of how we got here.

Elon Musk's first company was an online business directory called 'Zip2'

Musk started the online alternative to Yellow Pages in 1995 with his younger brother. Musk sold the company for $305M in 1999.

Mosaic is credited for making the World Wide Web accessible to everyday people—not just scientists—for the first time

Mosaic was a web browser that allowed people to more easily access webpages on the World Wide Web. But unlike previous browsers, Mosaic was a graphical browser, which means it displayed images alongside text. This helped turn the web from a place for scientists into a cultural location that captured people's attention.

GameStop stock began a meteoric rise in January 2021, rallying from a low of $2.57 to as high as $438 when Keith Gill helped mobilize retail investors to drive prices higher

Keith Gill was a financial advisor who posted on social media under usernames including "Roaring Kitty." Backing from Chewy founder Ryan Cohen, who became GameStop's CEO, took things up a notch.

One Facebook investor turned $500K into $1B

Peter Thiel was Facebook's first big investor. In 2004, he invested $500K into the social network, long before the company owned Instagram or renamed itself "Meta." In 2012, when he sold off most of his stake, he turned that initial $500K investment into more than $1B in cash.

Amazon sold its first book on April 3, 1995

Before selling everything on the internet, Amazon started as an online bookstore. The company's first customer was a man named John Wainright, who purchased "Fluid Concepts And Creative Analogies: Computer Models Of The Fundamental Mechanisms Of Thought" by Douglas Hofstadter. There's a building named after Wainwright on Amazon's Seattle campus.

Sophia Amoruso's company Nasty Gal was worth $100M at its peak

In 2006, Sophia Amoruso started an eBay shop that would later transform into the clothing company Nasty Gal. However, Amoruso’s rags-to-riches success with Nasty Gal didn’t last. After multiple rounds of layoffs and employee complaints, the company filed for bankruptcy in 2016.

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.

Sears sold DIY house kits starting at $600 in its famous catalog from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in roughly 10,000 'Sears and Roebuck houses' being built.

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

Fireworks make a loud booming sound after exploding due to air expanding faster than the speed of sound.

Quincy Jones' 'Big Band Bossa Nova' helped introduce bossa nova—a jazz-influenced Brazilian genre—to the US

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

Waves off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal, can reach over 100 feet and are caused by the area's deep underwater canyon geography

Roughly 43 million US borrowers owe roughly $1.7T in student debt, the second-largest source of consumer debt behind mortgages.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

In 2009, the nation was gripped by the story of a missing young boy who was believed to be floating over Colorado in a homemade balloon, until it was revealed that he was at home the whole time.

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls