How to Survive a Recession and Thrive Afterward

In early 2000, a five-year-old online bookseller called Amazon.com sold $672 million in convertible bonds to shore up its financial position. One month later, the dot-com bubble burst. More than half of all digital start-ups went out of business over the next few years—including lots of Amazon’s then-rivals in e-commerce. Had the bubble burst just a few weeks earlier, one of the most successful companies ever might have fallen victim to that recession.