On 31st of March 2000, CISCO hit all time high of $77. Peak internet bubble. It took 25 years (Nov 2025) for CISCO to reach $77 price per share again, which is roughly $320B market cap. CISCO is the infrastructure for the internet. In the meantime, applications for the internet such as META, GOOGLE, AMAZON reached $TN valuations.
TLDR:
* It can take decades for overvalued infrastructure to reclaim prior ATHs.
* Meanwhile, the application layer often captures the majority of long-term value creation.
* Cisco became the plumbing of the internet. Meta, Google, Amazon monetized the users on top of it.
* In tech cycles, infra enables the revolution — apps usually monetize it.