The speaker successfully navigated the 2000 dot-com crash by continuing to invest (dollar cost averaging) into the index fund, acquiring shares at lower prices.
"I was able to avoid suffering from the Internet stock crash of 2000 early on in my journey I learned that the losses felt massive whereas the profit seemed so so slow there's an old saying stocks rise like an escalator and crash like an elevator and this couldn't be more true I kept dollar cost averaging and adding to my stock portfolio even as the Doom crash continued"