Cisco 2000 vs AI Today: Bubble or Opportunity?
During the dot-com bubble, Cisco reached a $550 billion valuation while trading at over 200x annual earnings. Yes, it was a real, profitable business. The problem? Investors were pricing in a future that was basically perfect. When reality showed up, the stock crashed over 80%.
But comparing today’s AI leaders to random dot-com companies is lazy analysis.
NVIDIA sells the chips. Micron supplies the memory. SanDisk provides the storage. Cisco builds the networking infrastructure. These companies generate real revenue from real demand.
Are they guaranteed to keep going up? Absolutely not. Can some of them be overvalued? Of course.
But calling everything an AI bubble without looking at earnings and revenue is like calling the internet a scam because Pets.com went bankrupt.
The lesson from Cisco isn’t “sell everything with AI in its name.” It’s “don’t confuse a great company with a great stock price.”
And if the numbers keep growing, maybe it’s time to stop screaming “bubble” long enough to actually read the earnings report.
