When Brendan Gregg moved to Silicon Valley in 2006 as a young Australian software engineer, Apple was building its first iPhone, Google was still rolling out Google Maps and Uber did not exist.
The global financial crisis of 2008 was followed by a 15-year tech boom that introduced the world to smartphones, apps and now-common terms like "selfie", "viral" and "emoji".
A generation of bright young Australians made their way to California, pursuing their fortunes, but also propelled by optimism that tech was making the world a better place...
David Karpf, an author and researcher of digital media at George Washington University, made a similar observation.
For years, he said, the tech bubble was expected to burst. Yet, somehow, the bubble expanded. A frenzy for boutique cryptocurrencies gave way to an equally baseless speculation in non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
"There was an awful lot of people, including myself, staring at it, saying, 'This can't go on forever'," he said.
Read the full article on ABC Australia.