alt Hacker NewsZIRP was the era of where any tech startup was seen as a good investment no matter how stupid. Take any stupid business that doesn't work, say you do it with tech, get millions thrown at you. Then it was blockchain - same story, conventional business that doesn't work, but with blockchain - boom, instant money. Now the same with AI.
> you beg people with experience in software to believe you're trending up
Considering how much stupid shit I've seen funded (that quietly "incredible journey'd" away or folded by now) I don't think much begging was involved. Capital was desperate to find a place, no matter how ill-advised. Everyone in the startup food chain enjoyed it.
> Do you genuinely believe DAUs/MAUs stopped mattering once crpyto, then AI, arrived?
What started mattering is a clear path to monetize said DAUs/MAUs. You can't just show up with (potentially flawed) analytics saying you have DAUs and you're gonna figure out monetization later. Now you need to actually figure it out now and show up with analytics + proof of actually monetizing those users. Well, except if you're selling AI - then it's ok to sell inference at a major loss and figure out monetization later.
> collectively ran a con that no investor, board member, or executive noticed for a decade
"Investing" in a Ponzi can still be profitable as long as you get out before it collapses. There was a lot of passing around the hot potatoes between VCs too, so a VC can rightfully determine something to be a scam, but still invest if they believe SoftBank will happily hold the bag (and those guys ended up taking a lot of bags).
> "except if you're selling AI - then it's ok to sell inference at a major loss and figure out monetization later"
So the dynamic you attributed to ZIRP is alive and well, just wearing different clothes. Your original framework was "ZIRP allowed this, now real capitalism is correcting it." Now it's "this is permanent, it just rotates themes." These are different arguments.
> "Investing in a Ponzi can still be profitable as long as you get out before it collapses... a VC can rightfully determine something to be a scam, but still invest"
You've just moved the con from engineers to VCs. If investors knowingly played hot potato, then engineers weren't running a grift, they were employees doing jobs while capital played musical chairs above their heads.
So which is it: were engineers "deadweight" padding out finished products, or were they ordinary workers caught in a game VCs were knowingly playing? Because "VCs knew it was a scam but invested anyway" is a very different story than "engineers tricked everyone into thinking the product wasn't finished."
You're retreating into "everyone knew it was fake."