The Acquirers Podcast · Thursday, September 10, 2026
Investor Zeke Ashton drew parallels between the current AI market frenzy and the dot-com bubble of the early 2000s, noting the similar 'have to be there' mentality and the sheer scale of potential market sizes being discussed. He highlighted that while the dot-com era's speculative numbers seem small now, the current AI market's projections for companies like SpaceX and Anthropic are orders of magnitude larger.
“And so that definitely feels, uh, feels reminiscent.”
“So, um, I think if you asked me in January of 2000, what the chances were of a Nasdaq 80% decline being, you know, literally a couple of months away, um, I think I would have said it was a very small percentage chance, right?”
“And in fact, what I would say today is, the thing that worries me about today is, the numbers back then, even though they were huge at the time, really seem cute in comparison to the numbers we have today.”