7 November 2000: Pets.com announces it will shut down
Pets.com, famous for its sock-puppet mascot and a Super Bowl ad, said it would close and liquidate, just nine months after its IPO. The company had been selling heavy bags of pet food online, often below cost, and spending lavishly on marketing. It became the defining symbol of dot-com excess. Ironically, selling pet supplies online later proved a fine business for companies with better economics.
The lesson: A good idea with bad unit economics is still a bad business.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in Pets.com at the start of 2000 → $0 today, vs $4,626 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 2000, the year it happened. Pets.com went to zero, so the position is worth nothing at all; the index turned the same money into $4,626.
What Pets.com teaches: A good idea with broken unit economics still fails, and timing matters, since the same business can succeed decades later under better conditions.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | $11.00 | $0 | $4,626 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought Pets.com? Every starting year and the full story →
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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