By Douglas A. McIntyre
Publication Date: 2026-01-06 12:22:00
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Lee and I rewound the clock about 25 years, back to the height of the dot-com boom. At that time, Cisco was one of the hottest stocks on the planet, sitting at the center of the internet infrastructure buildout.
The dot-com peak and collapse
Lee reminded us just how dominant Cisco was during that period. The company’s stock surged into the $75 to $80 range as investors bet aggressively on internet growth. When the bubble burst in 2000 and 2001, Cisco did not fail as a business, but the stock collapsed and stayed buried for years.
That distinction matters. Cisco survived, but survival is not the same thing as delivering returns.
Why Cisco never disappeared
We both agreed that Cisco never truly went away. Its networking equipment remained essential, first for corporate IT and later for data centers and cloud infrastructure. Today, those same products are part of AI-related buildouts, keeping Cisco relevant even if it no longer dominates headlines.
The…
