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Eike Pierstorff's avatar

In 1999 I dropped out of university to join an internet startup. Like Musk I had grown up on a diet of techno-optimistic golden age SciFi ( I have grown up since), and while I had already accepted that I would not become an astronaut, this seemed a way to take part in an exciting future. Otoh I had grown up in very modest circumstances, amongst people who seriously believed that the way to wealth was hard and meaningful work, so my new environment was a bit alien to me. What puzzled me was that nobody seemed to have either a business plan, or indeed an idea that businesses are supposed to make money, and that the product was glorified ads which should not be worth a lot; rather the idea was "we are having a party, and we even pay our friends to join the party". I was told that I suffered from "old thinking" and I guess that was true, and still is. I am not sure if this was international the case, but when things eventually collapsed it was, here in Germany, not so much a market breakdown as a redistribution scheme. Lots of only recently privatized infrastructure (most notably Telekom, previously advertised as "Die Volksaktie", "the people's stock") profited first from the influx of money from small investors, and then the sudden concentration of stocks when the small investors had to divest from stocks in favour of food and rent and stuff. For me, that remained the lesson of what "economic bubble" means, big stakeholders taking temporary losses if that means they can disenfranchise the majority in the long term. I see nothing right now that would convince me I am wrong. There still seems a party going on, but a lot less people are getting invites.

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Michel de Cryptadamus's avatar

the money laundering crypto bros who run the government now have been angling for a government bailout - sorry, i mean a "strategic bitcoin reserve" or a "digital assets stockpile* - for years now. https://cryptadamus.substack.com/p/of-tech-bros-and-trumpers

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