Beach Reading: Tech Boom or Bubble?

Financial blogger Barry Ritholtz has posted a gigantic chart comparing the dot com boom-bust cycle with our current startup and IPO frenzy.

It’s worth gazing at on your iPad or Samsung Tab in between rounds of beach volley ball.

Here are a few key stats I’ve taken from Ritholtz’s chart that you may want to consider:
• There are as many iPhone users now as there were total Internet users in 1997.
• There have been 84 tech IPOs between ’09 and 2Q ’11. During the boom years of ’99,’00, and ’01 there were over 600 such IPOs.
• Facebook has the same market cap as Goldman Sachs, $75 billion, supported by revenue of $2 billion. Goldman is a public company with revenue for 2010 reported at around $40 billion.
• Groupon earns $16 per user for a total revenue of $800 million. It’s market cap of $13 billion is now the same as Best Buy.  In 2010, Best Buy reported revenue of about $49 billion.