By Guardian staff reporter
Publication Date: 2026-01-30 11:00:00
IIt was December 1999. Tech investors were in overdrive, convinced that a website and a Super Bowl ad were enough to get rich quick. Spending was confused with growth; Marketing has been confused with a business model. In just a few months, the dot-com boom would fail: the $1.7 trillion market value disappeared and the overall economy suffered a $5 trillion slump.
But something remarkable emerged from the rubble. The post-crash Internet has been defined not by speculation but by creation: the rise of Web 2.0 and open source software – and the birth of platforms like Firefox and Wikipedia. The lesson is simple: When bubbles burst, what comes next can be better if we build it differently.
Today, history is repeating itself – this time with AI.
The AI boom sounds incredibly familiar to me. Nearly 80% of stock gains in 2025 will be concentrated in just seven companies – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla, all vying for control of the entire AI stack that will underlie our shared future…
