[js4ever]

It was! I remember my first job in a startup in 1999, I was third employee, arriving in a 2000sqm office... There was so much money wasted, at that time the most important metric was cash burn rate, to be serious player you should be able to burn at least 1M per month, even with 3 employees.

[ryandrake]

Plus, the managers really couldn't tell who knew what they were doing and who didn't, so the money just sloshed around to everyone.

I remember a ridiculous TV commercial where a stereotypical pointy-haired boss guy was talking about hiring programmers, and he said "a candidate told me he dreams in code, and... I hired him on the spot!" And it was unironically framed as if the boss guy was doing an amazingly smart thing!

It was a crazy time.