Benedict Evans’ Spring 2026 slide deck argues AI is a platform shift on par with the internet and mobile eras.
Key Takeaways
Evans frames AI as the next major platform cycle following hardware, internet, mobile, and cloud eras.
The deck uses historical technology waves to position AI as an inevitable restructuring of software and business models.
No extracted source text available; takeaways are inferred conservatively from title and comments only.
Hacker News Comment Review
Commenters challenge Evans’ credibility, noting Bitcoin was dropped from his “disruptive technologies” graphs after prior promotion.
The era-by-era framing (IBM/Intel to AWS/Databricks to ChatGPT) resonates as a useful mental model but is seen as pattern-matching, not analysis.
Notable Comments
@2817635: calls the deck a “marketing Gish Gallop” that uses “fantasy graphs” to dismiss counterarguments while omitting past failed predictions like Bitcoin.
