I'm just some guy with an opinion. I worked in startups for 20 years. Startups are called exciting or thriving or good bets because a tiny few are successful and even fewer are trying to compete with established companies. Capital is pumped into lots of little ones regardless of the technology de-jour or market opportunity. They generally don't last. Statistically, if you were an AI startup from 6 years ago, you're long gone and you made out with what you could scrape together on the way out. Startups are thriving by feeding off dreams of grandeur, with very few happening upon the right combination of personality, capability and market enough to last for a decade. Is that thriving or thrashing? Don't confuse the velocity of gambling with the volume of opportunity.
[0]: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies?batch=Summer%202025 (search for "AI" and it gives 120)
A lot of tech is just straight up bad. The machine gun was bad. The nuclear bomb was bad. Social media was bad. TV was bad. Cars were bad. C++ was bad.
> If you are innovating with pencil and paper after the development of the computer, you're making a grave error.
This is a great example. Study after study shows that writing on paper helps retention and analysis vs. typing. Study after study shows reading on paper helps retention and comprehension vs. a screen.
> There was no virtue in still sending faxes in 2010.
You can send a document with an authentic signature. This might not seem like a big deal, but "wet ink" clauses prevent many pro-democracy agendas (voter registration, etc), and the good faith reason for them (the typical reason is voter suppression) is that documents are too easy to forge without signatures.
But also, were fax machines bad? Did they enable an even-more-sprawling bureaucracy? We're well past the point where "new tech = good" is even close to default true.
Meanwhile, I hear pretty much any startup not associated with AI is finding it harder to get funding.
part of the problem is that the remaining set of industries is pretty tough to make dynamic using technology simply because the explosive market size isn't there for various reasons. if you wanted to disrupt aviation, for example, a plane takes tens of billions of dollars to bring to market, and an airline requires outlaying billions in capex on planes.
But I understand what you meant
I do wish there was more dynamism in the US airline market though, the mergers forming the big three were probably a mistake
What do you base this statement on? Is there data?