AI Leadership Lessons from the Dot-Com Bust: A 2035 Perspective
Explore enduring tech leadership insights from the dot-com bust and how they shape AI adoption strategies that withstand hype and economic shifts by 2035.
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Chapter 1
Imported Transcript
Timothy Chester
I learned my first real lesson about technology cycles during the dot-com bust. I was an early-career programmer at Texas A&M, working on what then felt like cutting-edge projects: moving core business processes onto the web. Around us, the economy was faltering. In the middle of that uncertainty, our director, Tom Putnam, did something simple and rare. He stood in front of the staff, laid out the numbers line by line, and explained exactly how the organization would proceed. The work did not stop. In fact, some of the most durable systems of that era were built precisely because the hype had faded and discipline returned.
Timothy Chester
That experience shapes how I view the current AI boom. The technology is real. Much of the hype is not. In today’s Dispatch, we apply the lessons of the Internet’s boom and bust to the present moment by projecting forward to 2035 and asking a quieter, more durable question: what remains of AI after its boom and bust cycle ends. The aim is not to slow adoption, but to help leaders adopt AI now in ways that will still hold when capital tightens and the real work begins.