The tech downturn: How long and how bad?

Silicon Valley venture capitalist Ron Conway sent a sobering e-mail Tuesday to the 130 start-up companies he's invested in: now is the time to hunker down. How bad those conditions will be and how long they'll last is anyone's guess. The CNET Technology Index, which tracks 66 publicly traded tech companies, dropped for the third straight day Wednesday to hit its lowest level in more than three years. Even the healthiest of companies are seeing their stocks being sold en masse. Google, for example, finished trading Wednesday down 2.28 percent to $338.11 per share; that's a new 52-week low and less than half the asking price for a Google share in November 2007. Bad news persists in the overall economy as well, despite continued attempts at government intervention. The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 indexes all continued to slide Wednesday; the Dow has now dropped 35 percent from its high a year ago.