要是现在更像1996年，而不是1999年呢？

     In May 1996, Open Market completed a successful IPO and more than doubled on the first day of trading, ending with a $1.2 billion market capitalization. We had recorded $1.8 million in revenue the year before.

    If investors observing this extraordinary phenomenon in 1996 were to have concluded that the technology market was in the midst of an unsustainable bubble, they would not have been wrong. But if that observation led them to refrain from investing in the Internet sector, they would have missed one of the most stunning legal creations of wealth in history.

    In 1997, Charles River Ventures yielded a stunning 15x return for its fund, backing such superstars as Ciena, Vignette and Flycast. Matrix Partners had a fund in 1998 that yielded an eye-popping 514+% IRR. The Internet bull market continued to run for four more years after the Open Market IPO, finally ending in the spring of 2000. The average venture capital fund raised between 1995 and 1997 returned more than 50% per year.

    Amidst all the recent talk of boom vs. bubble, there is a hue and cry that the current environment may smack of 1999. But what if it's actually more akin to 1996? What if the fundamentals are good enough to support four more years of insane behavior before the music stops and the natural business cycle correction settles in?

    The chart below from this week's Economist on unemployment made me pause and consider this question. As evidenced from the unemployment curve in the last economic cycle, these business cycles can often last 4-5 years. 2009 was the trough year of the most recent business cycle -- and a deep trough at that. 2010 was a year of firming and climbing out of a hole, but the tepid IPO market and general macroeconomic malaise seemed to linger until late in the year (similar to how 1995 felt). 2011 is the first year where it feels like a real boom – much like 1996. Employment lags economic output and is an admittedly imperfect indicator, but if you continue the analogy, it may be that the next 4-5 year boom cycle lasts until 2015!

    Consider the following:

    • When bellwether players go public (such as Netscape in 1995), there is a massive rush of capital and companies that follow. Facebook will likely go public in 2012 and be valued in the $50-75 billion range. This IPO and others like it (e.g., Groupon, Zynga) will create tremendous liquid wealth for a number of people and institutions who will likely pour that wealth back into the start-up ecosystem. That liquidity flowing back into the start-up ecosystem will arguably fuel the boom.

    • Macroeconomic choppiness is holding back more dramatic market euphoria. Tsunamis, Middle East crises, government shutdown threats and a looming budget deficit are all dampers on the market. But if some of these dampers clear out – if there is a period of reasonable international stability, if a divided US government can strike another fiscally responsible deal for the upcoming budget year and begin to deal with some of the long-term, fundamental drags on growth -- then the markets will become even more euphoric. Remember, it wasn't a straight line between 1995 and 2000; there were a series of macroeconomic crises on the domestic front, such as a near government shutdown (sound familiar?) as well as international crises, including the Mexican debt default, Russian currency defaults and the Asian market crisis. Let's not forget that Time Magazine featured Alan Greenspan, Rob Rubin and Larry Summers on the cover in February 1999 as "The Committee to Save the World." At times, this period saw pretty grim macroeconomic trends, while the Internet continued to boom in the trenches.

    • Thanks to recent decades of strong growth, the combination of China, India and Brazil have GDPs that are 4x the size and impact on the global economy as compared to the 1990s (see chart below). Demand from these, now larger, economies are having a very positive effect on the US tech market. They are gobbling up mobile devices, PCs, routers and other technology gear at a rapid rate. This powerful source of economic demand didn't exist 15 years ago.

    • 当前的科技公司都拥有大量流动资金，而且资金数额比过去更大了。总部位于美国、市值超过1,000亿美元的全球科技公司有8家，分别是苹果（Apple）、谷歌（Google）、甲骨文（Oracle）、IBM、微软（Microsoft）、英特尔（Intel）、惠普（HP）和思科（Cisco）。还有一些公司处于有利的市场地位，增长迅速，有望成为下一批1,000亿美元级公司，如亚马逊（Amazon）、戴尔（Dell）、Netflix、 EMC、VMWare、Salesforce.com以及百度。这些公司要么在上世纪90年代时还不存在，要么比15年前强大了无数倍。互联网应用、手机应用、广告支出——所有这些在过去15年中都有了巨大的增长，为最新一轮繁荣提供了更强有力的支持。请看下图，如果考虑到手机上网增长，纳入更新的数据，曲线只会更陡峭。

    • All the existing technology players are awash in liquidity and all the numbers are bigger this time. There are eight US-based global technology companies with market capitalizations of greater than $100 billion (Apple, Google, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, Intel, HP, Cisco). There are a handful of companies that are very well-positioned, growing fast and could be the next $100 billion players (Amazon, Dell, Netflix, EMC, VMWare, Salesforce.com and Baidu come to mind). These companies either didn't exist in the mid-90s or are in infinitely stronger positions than they were 15 years ago. Internet usage, mobile phone usage, advertising dollar spend – all have grown enormously over the last 15 years to provide a stronger foundation underneath the latest boom. See the chart below, which will only explode further when updated for more recent figures that will take into account Internet access via mobile phones.

    我并不想鼓励盲目乐观。我知道全球经济仍存在一些重大的结构性问题，情况可能比过去更严峻。而且，在最近的美国股市上涨中有很多人认为牛市将不会持续太久。如果油价飙升至150美元/桶，更多国家陷入主权债务危机，华盛顿僵局持续，我们可能最早在2012年就会再次看到经济衰退。

    但是，随着企业家精神抬头，随着这一代年轻人（“企业家一代”）对科技和数字内容的兴趣和使用激增，随着创新领域显现一些积极动向，也可能欢歌还会再持续4-5年。这难道不值得我们重视吗？

    本文作者杰弗里•巴斯刚是风险投资公司Flybridge Capital Partners的普通合伙人。