The dot-com boom of the mid to late 1990s was a wild mix of hype, easy money and genuine technological progress. It created the basic infrastructure for today’s online world, but when the bubble burst in 2000 it wiped out trillions of dollars in market value and pushed the broader economy into a brief recession. Many of the companies at the centre of that mania were fragile: young, unprofitable start-ups built more on promise than on sound business models, the New York Times reported.

The current artificial intelligence surge clearly echoes that earlier moment. Once again there is talk of a glorious technological future. Fortunes are being made quickly, including by people who were present and successful in the dot-com years. Start-ups with little track record are attracting lofty valuati

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