Legendary tech investor Bill Gurley says today's markets remind him of the dot-com bubble

Reuters

• Legendary tech investor Bill Gurley told CNBC on Friday that the stock market reminds him of the late '90s dot-com bubble. 
• "There is certainly what I would call a highly speculative nature to the markets today, a willingness to take on risks, a willingness to get excited about projects that may be five or 10 years in the future," the Benchmark partner said. 
• Other investors like Stanley Druckenmiller have drawn similar conclusions about today's technology stocks. 

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Legendary venture capitalist Bill Gurley told CNBC on Friday that the stock market reminds him of the late-1990s tech trading environment that led to the dot-com bubble.

"There is certainly what I would call a highly speculative nature to the markets today, a willingness to take on risks, a willingness to get excited about projects that may be five or 10 years in the future, that we haven't seen since the '99 time frame," the Benchmark partner said. 

He added: "I really can't speculate or know exactly what it was, or the confluence of events that led to that, but we are living in a more speculative technology market for sure." 

Read more: MORGAN STANLEY: Buy these 16 stocks to cheaply invest in next-generation technologies and reap the future profits they generate

Other investors have echoed these concerns about frenzied traders pushing technology stocks into dangerously high territories. The top five tech stocks — Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, and Facebook — make up nearly a quarter of the S&P 500. 

Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller said in September that the market was in a "raging mania." After cloud-platform Snowflake soared as much as 165% on its IPO day, famed economist David Rosenberg said it reminded him of a "frenzy that took place in the dot-com bubble." 

But some argue there's a large difference between the internet companies of the '90s and tech giants of today. Billionaire Leon Cooperman said last week that he owns Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook, and Microsoft, and that they're richly valued, but not expensive. He called them "better than gold."

Read more: A Wall Street expert says a trend that with a 30-year track record of wrecking expensive stocks is flashing for big tech — and warns investors to brace for a turnaround within months

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