For just a few days in March 2000, because the dotcom bubble neared bursting level, Cisco was the world’s most precious firm. Now the vendor of networking gear is a cautionary story, even when additionally it is a permanent success, with actual earnings per share of 4 and a half occasions what they have been again then. Traders grew to become so exuberant concerning the agency’s prospects 25 years in the past that they valued it at greater than 200 occasions its annual revenue, round $1trn in at this time’s cash. Ranging from a valuation that stratospheric, Cisco’s solid-but-unspectacular progress was a bitter disappointment. Its market worth is now $280bn.