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Is Surge Replacing Hype?
Now, as it turns out the Surge cycle is not new. It was first described by Perez in 2002, it’s more of a wave and is not particularly related to technology. It’s defining characteristic is that instead of disillusionment causing interest to fall off a cliff, the reverse happens. A turning point is reached, where often various ecosystem factors – some of them technical related, others not – all dovetail and coincide to create near vertical take-off leading to widespread deployment.
This week, at a West Coast Goldman Sachs conference, Netscape founder Marc Andreessen argued that advances in mobile and chip-making technology signalled exponential expansion of the market. He credited Moore’s law with the potential to put a chip in everything and talked about how the Internet of Things could transform the way people live.
Further, and this is perhaps where Goldman Sachs’ interest lies, it was argued that the 2008 economic crash eliminated a lot of hype, regardless of where you were in the cycle (or indeed which cycle you’re in), which means that we should continue to enjoy a coming period of strong growth for the technology sector. Time to invest those bitcoins then.