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Paypal - 1998.

They're talking about PayPal mafia [1] in the article. So it's specifically about PayPal, Confinity and X.com.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal_Mafia

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confinity

"IT boom" sounds more generic though so I wasn't sure, I am not as familiar with the PayPal Mafia term till this article came about. I may of heard it briefly in the past and dismissed it. I was aware of some of those people running PayPal once upon a time, but I didn't really think too much about it.

Shortly after 2008 till around 2017 was when Silicon Valley, HN, and the start-up world in general surged heavily.

Now I think most people agree it's behind it's ceiling point. (most != all)

Of course before the first internet bubble also companies succeeded, but then when the bubble burst there was a dry phase.