Quote · The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
No Mercy / No Malice: 1999.AI
Where this was said
Infrastructure Crash: Nortel, Global Crossing, and the Telecom Wipeout
At 8:50 · chapter starts 7:45
The most catastrophic phase of the dot-com crash hit infrastructure last. Nortel Networks, which at its peak carried 75% of North America's internet traffic and was valued at $230 billion, saw over 90% of that value erased within a year. The mechanism was devastating: Nortel, Global Crossing, and Lucent had all extended vendor financing to dot-com clients who were now filing for bankruptcy. None of the three survived. Galloway notes that at the dot-com peak, 74% of stocks carried analyst buy recommendations — up from 60% just four years earlier — illustrating how incentive structures in financial markets drive consensual hallucination all the way to the edge of the cliff.
At its peak, Nortel Networks carried 75% of North America's internet traffic and was valued at $230 billion before losing over 90% of its value.
At the dot-com market peak, 74% of stocks had buy recommendations from analysts, up from 60% four years earlier — a sign of consensual hallucination.
OpenAI lost $21 billion in 2025. For every dollar subscribers pay for ChatGPT, the company spends nearly three. Its projected $100 billion ad business is 90% below its own forecast. This isn't a startup burning toward profitability — it's a hallucination with a balance sheet.
OpenAI's leaked financials reveal the company lost $21 billion in 2025, a scale of losses Galloway compares to the unsustainable burn rates of 1999 dot-com companies.
