Yeah, I think the last two recessions just happened to have coincided with a technological revolution (the internet, then mobile) - and were managing our way out of the recession by reducing interest rates, which spurs growth.

It's worth looking at the current macro climate through the lens of what is different, not what is the same. It remains to be seen if we land a meaningful revolution this time: lord knows it ain't the blockchain, but will it be AI? The other difference is as you point out, we're raising rates into this recession not lowering them. The intent right now is to slow growth and destroy demand making this an inherently more challenging time start.

As they say, don't fight the Fed.

I mean, it seems pretty obvious that we are on the cusp of the AI revolution, that could fuel decades of growth.

Which problem has AI solved so far that has led to cost savings without sacrificing customer experience? Or an application where AI led to more profitable sales?

Copilot for software engineering is amazing.

GP said “cusp.” Do you really think it’s going to not be profitable?

Facebook’s ML models contribute massively to their profitability.

AI, robotics, climate, fusion, whole bunch of biotech...

There's still ample tech innovation happening right now.

Ah to be clear I didn't mean to imply there was not going to be one (or many). I think those are broadly extremely promising areas even if I'd quibble with the inclusion of one or two of them. I'm eager to see how this all plays out.

blockchain (runs and hides)

Why do you have to hurt me like this?

> It remains to be seen if we land a meaningful revolution this time: lord knows it ain't the blockchain, but will it be AI?

Those are (except for one) all things that have been about to be massively revolutionary any day now for my entire life, and I'm in my 50s. Recessions generally only last for a few years, with a few more years of hangover after that. Lets say in the 3 to 5 year range before we're (hopefully) solidly into recovery. For a technology to actually make a material economic difference in that time frame it needs to have been out of the lab and going into mass adoption right now.

In 2008 the iPhone was already out and the App Store was launched that year, but arguably the smartphone didn't become a significant economic factor until around 2012. All the other services paulpauper cited as playing a role in the post 2008 recovery had been out for years, some of them almost a decade, but they just hit critical mass where they became economically impactful around then.

Green tech is the main exception, it's solidly into the steep phase of the adoption curve and has received a massive boots in investment in the last 12 months as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act*, plus the Ukraine war and the pivot away from Russian hydrocarbons.

* Gotta love US bill names. You just know the "Cute kittens appreciation act" is going to cull and stuff all the cute kittens.

Well, every company is looking to save money and be more efficient. Meanwhile we're having technical and inflection point breakthroughs in AI-powered language and image models.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a crop of start-ups focused around that space.

On the other hand, things indeed did suck terribly bad in terms of funding, job market, etc. back in 2008-2009. A lot worse than in an average recession.

In 2008 startups actually could afford to have a garage to start. Not anymore ...

Depends on the location.

It’s probably cheaper now to get a sublease on commercial real estate or a lease in a class B/C building in most parts of the US than renting the equivalent sized residential garage. It certainly is in SF at least.

I don't know much about commercial real estate, so I checked LoopNet for my area. If you're not picky about the neighborhood, I'm surprised how cheaply you can get a garage-sized space.

But it's vastly easier now to start something that's totally remote.

Nobody knew that at the time. Many folks thought it was the end of the world aka "rip good times". Kinda like today.

The people who always seem to feel they live in exceptional times are just not very good students of history.

Perhaps that long list of innovations has something to do with the startups founded in 2008.

Going back one more outlier to the dot com boom - a gap then was virtually no one was online.

2023 feels a little like the start of the start with shades of 2008.

This. People underestimate how much technological progress has been slowing every decade. 2008 was even slower than 1998, which was even slower than 1988. Meanwhile almost nothing new has happened since 2013.