Boom: Bubbles and the End of Stagnation

Given the recent prevalence of predictions on ensuing AI bubble collapse, I was excited to gain a deeper understanding of bubbles throughout history and their lasting effects on society. The book succeeded on that front.

Boom's main thesis seemed to be that bubbles, despite their fleeting nature, can create sustained change and progress in certain industries. The book provides several examples of this occurring: The Manhattan project, the integrated circuit/transistor, the oil industry, etc.

However, several of the examples it provides seem to prove the opposite of the intended thesis. The Apollo Program, while clearly causing a bubble-like mania, clearly did not leave a lasting positive impact on the space industry...it's more than 50 years later and humans have still not returned to the moon, despite orders of magnitude more investment.

Similarly, cryptocurrency and Bitcoin, while they certainly have been able to gain a large following, have not been able to change the world in meaningful ways. The NFT bubble in particular was a clear example of a bubble destroying part of an industry.

While many of the arguments for the sustained benefits of bubbles were provided, they were diminished by the examples that displayed the opposite result from the seeming thesis of the book.