Is it 1997 again?

There's jitters on Wall Street and about the over-indexing on AI. Yet 90% of companies have reported for Q3 2025 with mostly positive earnings. Yes, the market cap of the Magic 7 make up a significant amount of the S&P, yet with a 30-year perspective of the industry that doesn't seem risky—at least not if the traders look at long-term gains instead of short-term performance.

So looking back at 1997, it was the last year where multiple rounds of layoffs in tech happened annually. People don't realize that the most of the '90s were a corporate bloodbath of pink slips. Even at behemoths like AOL, job cuts and stagnant growth for employees were the norm. By this pivotal year, the Netscape browser had been out in the wild for 2 years and was in wide-scale use across Silicon Valley, yet the tech industry still hadn't taken off. Times were tough as the web infrastructure and it's graphic user interface (GUI) got built for everyday use.

But a year later, the brokers and traders finally understood how to harness and infuse technology into the systems to improve employee productivity. Prior to that it was hand-wringing on Wall Street, yet once there was a business use, the money poured into tech even more than before.

See, business use is stage 1.

When people reference DotCom 1 and it's "dumb companies," they often point to Pets.com, yet I have a different theory: it targeted consumers too early. Pets.com was a company with great advertising and delivering a helluva convenience about 12–15 years before the world was ready. Case in point: Chewy. Essentially the same business model and focused on consumers.

At this moment with AI: companies focused on business use-cases are where the investment will go first and be needed most. To do that successfully, there will be a need for people, and the code updates, inventive ideas, and marketing campaigns will start rolling out a fierce pace. Maybe headcount won't be the same numbers as previous tech booms, yet for smaller B2B businesses they'll need experts to help them overhaul processes and systems lest they get lapped by competitors. Meaning: they will have to invest. So how long can they hold out?

Now before you say the new tools all use natural language prompts, so anyone can do it ... to that I say, have you ever worked with a writer? Just because everyone can type up a Doc doesn't mean everyone is skilled with words. I use ChatGPT daily as part of my workflow and have no fear of good writers being replaced in the next few years if companies want to stand out. Rather than replacement, there will be expansion and a need for how to overhaul and reinvent using these tools.

And that's where we are at the moment with AI: job searchers should look at B2B companies of any size, and on your resume highlight skills that will be needed for the new economy: ability to use AI creativity and strategically, while being a great communicator and collaborator who can connect-the-dots.

___________________________________
Ready to rebuild your story?
Book a free Career Strategy Consult →