[ak_111]

I think you are being harsh on the critics. A technology can have tremendous value while still attracting grifters and being an early investors' graveyard.

Best example is the dot com bubble in 1996 - 2001, the web had truly world-changing potential, but grifting was rife and practically all early investors lost their money unless you were one of the lucky ones who invested in amazon, yahoo, google or ebay out of the 10,000 companies that were shilling back then (and even then you had to be very patient not to sell your stock for decades to make the really big gains - see the history of amazon and apple stock during this era).

There are many such examples in history of technology concerning grifters and the fate of early investors see also automobiles and printing press (even in printing press Guttenberg lost a lot of money and had many grifters/copycats)

[trashtester]

Most companies failed, not necessarily most investors.

If you'd put your money into a Nasdaq based index fund in 1998 (that reinvested all dividends), you would have a pretty good return up to today.

Most good investors either spread out like that, or are very good at reasearching what companies have real promise and what do not.

[bakuninsbart]

> A technology can have tremendous value while still attracting grifters and being an early investors' graveyard.

Not sure how this compares to other recent technology revolutions, but most AI startups seem to be one feature announcement from Microsoft away from bancrupcy. So even with the best intentions of founders, it seems like a really volatile market.

[ak_111]

This is very similar to the app start-up craze that apple triggered. After every new iOS release or new FB announcement there were a multitude of app startups that were made redundant. For example there were plenty of startups focused on bookmarking websites, or sharing notes, or allowing in-game adverts.