The AI Bubble: Too Much Money, Too Little Cohesion
What if the biggest risk to AI isn’t technical failure — but too much money, too fast?
“It looks like progress. It feels like momentum. But it’s really dilution.”
The Mirage of Innovation
AI today feels unstoppable. Engineers raise millions overnight, startups sprout like weeds, valuations climb sky‑high. The headlines glow with inevitability: AI is the future, and the future is here.
But beneath the surface, the shine dulls. What we’re witnessing isn’t just innovation. It’s fragmentation.
Talent Scattered by Capital
When capital is this abundant, every strong engineer is tempted to spin out on their own. Why join an existing team when you can raise insane funding and build your own empire?
The result: dozens of ventures, each flush with cash, but none with the critical mass of talent needed to push breakthroughs across the finish line.
This isn’t failure of skill. It’s failure of cohesion. The economy is rewarding fundraising prowess over concentrated execution.
“Fundraising has become the product.”
The Stock Market Echo
The same distortion plays out in public markets. Just as engineers scatter into too many ventures, investors scatter into too many inflated valuations.
Too much money chasing too many stories. The illusion of growth replaces the discipline of consolidation.
That’s why the “AI bubble” framing resonates. It’s not about whether AI is transformative — it is. The question is whether the capital dynamics around it are sustainable.
Backbone vs. Hype
If you want to see where the safer journey lies, look away from the spectacle and toward the backbone:
Energy — grids, storage, renewables. The infrastructure that keeps AI running.
Compute — silicon, GPUs, accelerators. The picks and shovels of the AI gold rush.
These aren’t speculative plays. They’re necessities. Whether the bubble bursts or not, energy and compute will still be demanded by every serious attempt to make AI real.
The Ache of Oversupply
There’s an ache in watching brilliance scatter. Knowing talent could be concentrated into breakthroughs, but instead siphoned into fundraising contests.
The bite comes from recognizing that the economy itself is complicit — rewarding the spectacle of capital over the substance of engineering.
“Capital is scattering brilliance faster than it can consolidate.”
Closing Thought
The AI revolution won’t be won by every engineer raising their own empire. It will be won when talent and capital converge into teams resilient enough to outlast the hype.
Until then, the bubble isn’t hype — it’s a warning shot.