Boom: Bubbles and the End of Stagnation

Hobart and Huber make the contrarian argument that speculative bubbles are not market failures to be prevented but the mechanism through which societies fund risky technological transitions that rational capital allocation would never support. The book connects the dot-com bubble, railway mania, and earlier episodes of speculative excess to show that the infrastructure left behind — fibre optic cables, railway networks, factory capacity — repeatedly became the foundation for the next wave of real growth. This connects directly to Carlota Perez's theory of technological revolutions and the recurring pattern of installation and deployment periods. For product directors, the implication is that the funding environment shapes what gets built, and understanding the dynamics of speculative capital is as important as understanding user needs. The writing is dense with ideas but short enough to finish in an afternoon, which is characteristic of the best Stripe Press titles.