. >> smith: steve schullo and dan robertson believed they were headed for early retirement the day theirortfolio topped $1 million. it was november 11, 1999. >> oh, that was a very nice day, that day, wasn't it? >> what happened november 11? >> see, he doesn't... it's when our portfolio went over a million, silly. >> oh! >> that was just amazing. it was like, "well, yeah, this is how investments work. you invest it and it grows." i mean, that's how i thought about it. >> it was a manic monday in the financial markets... >> stocks plunged... >> traders are standing there, watching in amazement and i don't blame them... >> smith: but in the spring of 2000, the market collapsed. >> traders are working the phones today. a lot of their customers are freaked out... >> we did not know. this was our mistake. we didn't know it was a bubble. we just didn't know. our portfolio had gone all the way down to where it was in 1996, from $1.5 million to $500,000. >> $460,000, i think. >> all that was gone. >> smith: at the height of the internet bubble, americans had also stuffed 19% of their retirement