Chapter 6. Loss of Nerve

We now look back on the late 1990s as the dot-com bubble, a heady time of wild innovation and rampant speculation. But back then, they were simply thought of as an unprecedented boom brought about by a healthy economy and the rise of the Internet. And when the bubble burst, companies like M2 Consulting, then among the most successful growth businesses in America, had to find ways to cope with the fallout.

M2 shrank from $25 million in revenue to $12 million in less than a year. Marion McGovern, the company's CEO, watched her firm's earnings fall from a positive $2 million to a negative half million over the same time period. Like the earthquakes that threaten her hometown of San Francisco, the bust shook the company—and ...

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