Premium: This Is Worse Than The Dot Com Bubble

The current AI investment bubble is worse than the dot-com era, with venture capital pouring $168 billion into AI in 2025 alone—nearly half of all VC funding. Unlike the dot-com bubble where companies at least had viable business models, AI startups have negative margins that worsen with growth, unprofitable unit economics, and no path to profitability. CES 2026 showcased this dysfunction: companies demoing vaporware robots and repackaging basic chatbot features as revolutionary "AI agents." The venture capital industry has devolved into late-stage momentum investing rather than early-stage risk-taking, rewarding grifting over fundamentals. When this bubble bursts, the consequences will be catastrophic because the investments are larger, the contagion wider, and unlike dark fiber from the dot-com era, GPUs and AI infrastructure have fundamentally broken economics with no salvageable residual value.