?????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.

????? 當前的科技公司都擁有大量流動資金，而且資金數額比過去更大了。總部位于美國、市值超過1,000億美元的全球科技公司有8家，分別是蘋果（Apple）、谷歌（Google）、甲骨文（Oracle）、IBM、微軟（Microsoft）、英特爾（Intel）、惠普（HP）和思科（Cisco）。還有一些公司處于有利的市場地位，增長迅速，有望成為下一批1,000億美元級公司，如亞馬遜（Amazon）、戴爾（Dell）、Netflix、 EMC、VMWare、Salesforce.com以及百度。這些公司要么在上世紀90年代時還不存在，要么比15年前強大了無數倍。互聯網應用、手機應用、廣告支出——所有這些在過去15年中都有了巨大的增長，為最新一輪繁榮提供了更強有力的支持。請看下圖，如果考慮到手機上網增長，納入更新的數據，曲線只會更陡峭。

????? 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.

????我并不想鼓勵盲目樂觀。我知道全球經濟仍存在一些重大的結構性問題，情況可能比過去更嚴峻。而且，在最近的美國股市上漲中有很多人認為牛市將不會持續太久。如果油價飆升至150美元/桶，更多國家陷入主權債務危機，華盛頓僵局持續，我們可能最早在2012年就會再次看到經濟衰退。

??? 但是，隨著企業家精神抬頭，隨著這一代年輕人（“企業家一代”）對科技和數字內容的興趣和使用激增，隨著創新領域顯現一些積極動向，也可能歡歌還會再持續4-5年。這難道不值得我們重視嗎？

????本文作者杰弗里?巴斯剛是風險投資公司Flybridge Capital Partners的普通合伙人。