Overview
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Scale comparison: AI spending in 2025 may exceed \$1.5 trillion globally, dwarfing the internet bubble's \$360 billion (inflation-adjusted), with the mania inflating in two-thirds the time.
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Concentrated risk: Seven tech giants represent roughly a third of the S&P 500, each spending $70-100 billion annually on AI infrastructure without proven returns.
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Leverage concerns: Circular vendor financing deals, massive private credit arrangements, and debt-fueled data center expansion create systemic fragility reminiscent of Lucent's collapse.
Takeaways
Fred Vogelstein, who covered the dot-com bubble, wrote this analysis for Crazy Stupid Tech. The key warning: humans reliably overestimate technology impacts within seven years while underestimating them beyond that window.
"When numbers are so large they don't make sense, they usually don't make sense."