Is the tech bubble back?

There's more than just a whiff of the 1990s dotcom bubble about today's frothy tech sector.

Technology is partying like it's 1999. In 2013, there were 45 initial public offerings (IPOs) in the sector, the most in 13 years.

Facebook's purchase of internet messaging service WhatsApp last week for $19bn more than the value of firms such as Marriott International and Southwest Airlines made 2014 the strongest start to a year for tech deals since the dotcom bubble peak in 2000.

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Andrew Van Sickle
Editor, MoneyWeek

Andrew is the editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He grew up in Vienna and studied at the University of St Andrews, where he gained a first-class MA in geography & international relations.

After graduating he began to contribute to the foreign page of The Week and soon afterwards joined MoneyWeek at its inception in October 2000. He helped Merryn Somerset Webb establish it as Britain’s best-selling financial magazine, contributing to every section of the publication and specialising in macroeconomics and stockmarkets, before going part-time.

His freelance projects have included a 2009 relaunch of The Pharma Letter, where he covered corporate news and political developments in the German pharmaceuticals market for two years, and a multiyear stint as deputy editor of the Barclays account at Redwood, a marketing agency.

Andrew has been editing MoneyWeek since 2018, and continues to specialise in investment and news in German-speaking countries owing to his fluent command of the language.