Finisar's stock touched $106 on its first day of trading, more than five times its $19 offering price. It closed at $89. That November 1999 debut was among the biggest first-day gains in American market history. The Sunnyvale company made optical transceivers, small modules that convert electrical data into pulses of laser light and back again. Every data center and fiber network needed them, and the bubble made them look like gold.

A Small Part Everyone Needs

Frank Levinson founded Finisar in April 1987, and Jerry Rawls joined him to run the business. They focused on the parts that connect computers and storage systems over fiber. The bet was that as data volumes grew, copper wires would run out of room and light would take over. Finisar made its modules in volume and sold them to the companies that built switches, routers and storage gear.

Boom, Bust and Back

Finisar priced at $19 a share in November 1999 and listed on Nasdaq as FNSR. Rawls later said the first-day jump ranked seventh in the history of American exchanges. The telecom crash in 2001 crushed demand, and the stock fell below $1. Finisar survived, bought rivals and grew with cloud data centers. In 2019 II-VI bought it for about $3.2 billion, and II-VI later took the name Coherent.

Cover: Lights of Other Days, John Frederick Peto. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for old lamps (light carrying the signal).