---
id: "prereq-dot-com-bubble"
type: "prereq"
source_timestamps: ["§ Innovation Meets Speculation", "\\\"§ Industrial Policy", "Capital Flows", "and the Geopolitics of AI\\\""]
source_url: "https://hbr.org/2025/10/is-ai-a-boom-or-a-bubble"
source_title: "Is AI a Boom or a Bubble?"
tags: ["economic-history", "market-cycles"]
related: ["concept-stranded-assets", "claim-bubble-timing-distortion", "concept-circular-financing", "claim-speculative-valuations"]
reason: "Required to understand the historical parallels the author uses to warn of stranded AI assets and misaligned capital cycles."
sources: ["futures"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-futures"
originDay: 2
articleStem: "hbr-foci-74-ai-boom-or-bubble"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2025/10/is-ai-a-boom-or-a-bubble"
sourceTitle: "Is AI a Boom or a Bubble?"
---
# Dot-Com Bubble Dynamics

**Why you need this:** Required to understand the historical parallels the author uses throughout — to warn of [[concept-stranded-assets|stranded AI assets]] and misaligned capital cycles.

The author repeatedly invokes the late-1990s dot-com bubble, specifically: (1) the **overinvestment in telecom fiber infrastructure** that left behind unused "dark fiber," and (2) the **circular financing arrangements** of the era (see [[concept-circular-financing]]). Understanding how **capital deployment outpaced internet adoption** — leading to bankruptcies *despite the internet's ultimate success* — is the key to grasping both [[claim-speculative-valuations|the valuations claim]] and [[claim-bubble-timing-distortion|the bubble-timing claim]].


## Related across articles
- [[concept-terminal-value-collapse]]
- [[concept-great-value-loop]]