"Dot-com, housing, AI: How hype can lead to bubbles"

"Thanks for the candid advice" A founder recently asked me if their plan would get them on track for a series B. I suggested they focus on what would allow them to avoid series B. Why? The main reason is, outside of "AI Companies", it's very hard to know what growth investors want. And if they do agree to terms, the recent data suggests we're back to 2022/2023 levels of down rounds. This means for non AI companies, we should assume this is now the MAJORITY of growth rounds. It's discount shopping season again. So a deal will almost certainly come with some of your best talent leaving - why would they stay if their stock value plummets after years of work? And then you're still left trying to hit the growth metrics you promised along with a harder hurdle to get everyone paid if you wind up (most likely) selling your company. In many cases, founders have a lot more control if they aim for cashflow-related goals so they don't need a growth round. It doesn't mean no growth round ever. It means a much stronger negotiating position if and when you decide to do it. In the meanwhile, the private credit market is looking for deals, so you have more options...another great reason to focus on cash and growth, not just growth.

🚨 “Are we in a bubble?” That question stopped me in my tracks last week after reading Guillermo Flor’s excellent piece: "Sh*it, are we in a bubble?" (link in comments) The core argument? We're witnessing a circular financing loop in the AI ecosystem — where the biggest players are investing in each other, inflating valuations, and recirculating value within a closed system. → Internal deals → Inflated valuations → More internal deals. But where is the external demand? What I’m seeing: 🔁 Company A funds Company B 💰 Company B spends with Company A (or its affiliates) 📈 Valuation grows — but external revenue and proven business models lag far behind. The potential of AI — especially AGI — is enormous. But if that transformation arrives later than expected, what happens before it gets here? As a tech founder, here’s my thesis: The AI shift is real. But right now, we may be riding more on hype, circular capital, and aggressive expectations than on sustainable fundamentals. If that’s true, a correction isn’t just likely — it’s inevitable. The only question is: when, and how hard? So I’m asking — and I hope you will too: -> Are we building external value, or just trading dollars within the ecosystem? -> Are current valuations grounded in real outcomes — or speculative bets? -> If funding tightens, what happens when the loop breaks? Would love to hear your perspective: 👉 Are we building something durable — or just recycling capital inside a house of cards?

AI is becoming the great equaliser in markets where buyers used to be exploited. Here’s what’s going on. What happened? I recently read th the article “The end of the rip-off economy”, recommended by Felipe Ribbe de Vasconcellos. The Economist argues that the long-standing economic model in which sellers, service-providers or intermediaries profit from opacity, confusion and inertia is now under serious pressure. Examples: from car-leasing , to medical advice, to home renovations, consumers are turning to AI tools and data-driven platforms to cut through informational asymmetries. As these tools proliferate, what was once a hidden markup or unfair deal is becoming visible. But the deeper point is: **who owns the narrative of value?** When the “black-box” of value extraction disappears, business models need to evolve, not just on price but on trust, transparency and genuine differentiation. Why this matters strategically for companies: - Value propositions rooted in complexity, opacity or client inertia are under threat. - Competitive advantage will shift toward transparency, simplification and customer empowerment. - Firms resisting this shift may face disintermediation or be forced into price wars. 💡 As CMO of Oxus Finance, I’d frame this as: tokenization + data-democratization + AI-assisted purchasing = a new playing field. We’re moving from “trust the broker because you don’t know better” to “I know enough to pick the winner”.

The current AI boom is built on a flawed economic model. It's not a software gold rush; it's a massive, low-margin wealth transfer. VCs and enterprise are pouring capital (part of a $192.7B wave) into AI labs that are operating with deeply negative gross margins. This capital flows directly to a hardware monopoly charging 1,000%+ markups for the privilege. This "Great AI Value Chain Inversion" is unsustainable. The TCO is becoming a crisis for enterprise CFOs, and the business model is broken for investors. We need to stop subsidizing this bubble and start building a more rational, economically viable paradigm. We've been focused on this problem. I've just published our public report, "The Industrial Mind," which introduces a new class of AI architected from the ground up to solve this. It's not another prospector in the gold rush; it's an entirely new model. #AI #Economics #VentureCapital #CFO #Tech #Innovation #Investing #Strategy

Mike's calling out the elephant in the room: AI's current economics are broken, and it's creating a crisis for enterprise buyers and investors alike. From a strategic partnerships lens, this is massive. When a $192.7B market is built on an unsustainable model, the reset creates entirely new partnership opportunities; not incremental plays, but foundational shifts in how value gets created and captured. "The Industrial Mind" isn't another AI product, it's a different economic architecture. That means different GTM strategies, different partnership models, and different ways to solve the TCO crisis that's keeping CFOs up at night. If you're in the AI ecosystem and thinking about how this inversion reshapes your partnership strategy, let's connect! This is exactly where I focus, building alliances around structural market shifts.

Retail investors aren't flinching—despite talk of an AI bubble, many are riding out the dips. A McKinsey report says AI could add $4.4T annually to the global economy. That kind of long-term potential is hard to ignore, even when markets wobble. Curious where this confidence leads? #AIbubble #investing #techtrends

🔴 RED PILL 💊 The Illusion of the AI Gold Rush ❗ The current market is full of people trying to make it big — fast. ➖ Everyone’s building. Everyone’s launching. ➖ Everyone’s “in the race.” But here’s the truth: ⚠️ Most are already losing. ⚠️ Quietly. Invisibly. ⚠️ And they don’t even know it. — ⏳ A decade ago, when you started a business — it was a phase. ➖ You had time to stabilize. ➖ The world was still expanding. ➖ Even average businesses got a chance to survive. Now? 🌍 We’re in a slowdown masked as evolution. Yes, things are evolving — But mostly in definitions: 📉 What a “job” means 📉 What “security” looks like 📉 What “progress” even is In that discomfort, everyone wants the same thing: ⛔ Catch the next big wave. ⛔ Preferably before it hits. ⛔ Preferably AI. 💱 And so they jump in — With half-built visions, no execution depth, and zero long-term footing. The result ⁉️ A flood of: ➖ Pitch decks ➖ AI wrappers ➖ Fancy visions with no spine ➖ Product launches that feel like motion but change nothing ➖ It looks like a boom. ➖ It feels like momentum. But really? 📛 It’s slow-drip hope distribution. 📛 Just enough movement to keep people from quitting. 📛 Not enough to actually arrive. And when the water settles — Most won’t even realize how far off-course they drifted. ➿

Are we in an AI bubble? 🤔 There’s been a lot of chatter lately about whether the surge in AI spending is sustainable or if we’re reliving the late-’90s dot-com story. While the tech stock valuations are definitely stretched, they’re nowhere near the extremes we saw during the Internet boom. And when you look at tech spending as a share of GDP, we’re still far below the levels reached in previous cycles like the PC and Internet eras. In other words, this AI wave might still be in its early innings. History doesn’t repeat but it often rhymes. Each innovation cycle has changed how we live, work, and invest… and AI is shaping up to be no different. Stay balanced, stay informed to stay ahead! #money #investing #strategy #finance #wealthmanagement #stockmarket #trading #financialinsights #marketwatch #investmentstrategies #georgemanjgaladze

I'm concerned about 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐈 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩𝐬.⚠️ According to 𝐌𝐚𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩, we're sitting on a 𝐛𝐮𝐛𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 17 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐭-𝐜𝐨𝐦 𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐡 𝐚𝐧𝐝 4 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐛𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐬. Not just big... 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐮𝐧𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝.📈 The fuel? 𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 that made capital nearly free, combined with the promise that AI would transform everything. And now 𝐰𝐞'𝐫𝐞 𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐬. 🚧 Here's what keeps me up at night about what this means for companies: The ones who 𝐛𝐞𝐭 𝐛𝐢𝐠 𝐨𝐧 𝐀𝐈 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 are sitting on massive capital commitments... infrastructure, talent, licensing, implementation costs that haven't delivered the promised returns yet. When the bubble corrects, three things happen simultaneously: 💥 Capital becomes expensive again 💥 Investors demand proof of ROI, not promises 💥 The companies that overspent face a profitability crisis We've seen this movie before. In 2000, companies had built entire strategies around "internet transformation" without clear paths to monetization. In 2008, financial institutions had leveraged themselves on assets they didn't understand. The 𝐀𝐈 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞: massive capital allocation based on future promises rather than present economics. The companies that survive won't be the ones with the most AI initiatives. They'll be the ones who can answer a simple question: "𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐀𝐈 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭 𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲?" Not in five years. Not when the technology matures. Today. Because when the bubble corrects, "we're investing in the future" stops being an acceptable answer to "why is profitability declining?" Have you stress-tested your AI investments against a scenario where capital becomes expensive and investors demand immediate returns? --- If this made AI + marketing feel clearer, follow me. Like the post so the algorithm doesn’t throw a tantrum 🤖 Deep dives → https://rebrand.ly/4de70f Connect → https://rebrand.ly/ba171f

John Kenneth Galbraith on the period up to the 1929 Crash: It was still necessary to reassure those who required some tie, however tenuous, to reality. The time had come, as in all periods of speculation, when men sought not to be persuaded by the reality of things, but to find excuses for escaping into the new world of fantasy. This bubble has been blown by two reinforcing trends - 1. passive investing that mathematically concentrates investment in up trending stocks and 2. AI enthusiasm and belief. 1. Is nothing for a market skeptic to trifle and is built in so will continue to drive stocks higher until the uptrends fail for some other reason. 2. So it all comes down to the AI bubble and what makes it waver. AI can become the biggest thing ever even as 90% of the companies go bankrupt - this is exactly what happening in 2000-2002. Just sayin....