In Ghazi’s telling, each tech boom began with a constant and a variable. The constant was easy financing, whether from government-subsidized borrowing or unsophisticated investors. The variable was whatever Silicon Valley was trying to sell at the time. In the early nineties, the boom was about hardware. IBM and Apple had found a way to commercialize military-funded computer research by churning out personal desktop computers and accessories. “Back then, Silicon Valley was small,” Ghazi said. “It was focused almost exclusively on the technology with very little thought on how to market it.” Then, in the late nineties, came another commercial boom, also underwritten by government research: the internet. This time, something changed. Wall Street got involved.

“All of a sudden, Silicon Valley got the first taste of the big money,” Ghazi said. Certain venture capital funds, such as Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia, grew large and powerful—even more so after the bubble popped in 2000. The big crash cleared out the competition. While industry down cycles drove lots of people out of business, the surviving players claimed even more ground. This pattern went back a long way. In fact, as my subsequent research revealed, it went back to the beginning.