We aren't in the early 2000s anymore. Tech companies won't be seen as a "fad" any time soon. As long as VCs keep making money out of diversifying risk, the "bubble" will never burst.
Early 2010s tech boom, while it involved a lot of money, felt like it was directing money at generally useful things. Cloud, Big Data, AI etc. were “buzzwords” but were generating real value for companies that used them correctly. It seemed like VCS had learned from 2000s.
With web3 we see a lot of vaporware and pyramid schemes. It is unlikely to pop like it did back then considering how entrenched technology is today but it would still wipe out a lot of value and further entrench the bigger companies.
Societal and cultural understandings of what "tech" is has shifted dramatically in the last 20 years. Home computers were still pretty niche, constant connectivity via pocket size computers was a work of science fiction, and we didn't have an omnipresent internet retailer that could bring you nearly anything in a few hours/a couple days.
The possibilities of the internet and tech companies were still in their formulative stage with regards to the general population. It's now so engrained in our daily lives that it's taken for granted.
I suspect the bubbles that will actually burst are going to be incredible niche. Even then, things like NFTs may survive due to a cultural imagination that allows ideas to live on longer than maybe they should.
I thought to myself this will not end well, major crash around the corner. I am annoyed that they were right.
I believe it's the former, but haven't done any analysis to back up that assumption.
Recently I stumbled upon a company founded in 2019, with more 1500 employees, that’s about ~500 employees a year.
That isn’t growth, at all, that’s something else.