AI Is Minting Billionaires Faster Than the Dot Com Boom

3 min read.

Author

Midas AI
August 11, 2025

In just two years, the artificial intelligence boom has minted 29 new billionaires, amassing a combined $71 billion in founder wealth, according to Bloomberg’s latest tally. All this unfolded at a speed that even seasoned wealth advisers call astonishing.

One of the most symbolic moments came when Anthropic closed a funding round that valued the company at $61.5 billion, instantly placing all seven co founders in the billionaire bracket. Meanwhile, DeepSeek’s Liang Wenfeng, CoreWeave’s Michael Intrator, and Scale AI’s Alexandr Wang joined the list of AI’s fastest rising fortunes. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, already one of the richest people on the planet, saw his net worth climb toward Warren Buffett territory as the company became the first to reach a $4 trillion market cap.

Infrastructure Spending Rewrites the Playbook

Capital expenditure on AI infrastructure has entered unprecedented territory. Tech giants are building data centers and securing chip supply at a pace that now exceeds the telecom and internet build outs of the 1990s. Morgan Stanley projects $3 trillion in global data center spending by 2028, fueled by the surge in generative AI revenues.

The difference this time is that the infrastructure is tied directly to revenue producing applications. From cloud APIs to enterprise automation tools, the spending is not speculative, it is foundational to meeting current demand.

Bubble Fears and Structural Differences

Economists see familiar warning signs: valuations that leapfrog fundamentals, speculative capital inflows, and the rush of funding into unproven ideas. Apollo’s Torsten Sløk warns that the overvaluation risk could exceed the dot-com bubble’s collapse in magnitude.

Yet AI has already proven commercial viability at scale. Enterprises are integrating it into code generation, document drafting, logistics optimization, and drug discovery. This level of embedded daily use is a key structural difference from the 1990s, when many internet companies had traffic but no revenue.

Beyond the Headliners: The Quiet Builders

The media narrative is dominated by a few big names, but the real breadth of this gold rush lies in the ecosystem. A growing class of companies is focused on the “picks and shovels” of AI, chip cooling systems, data labeling, model evaluation tools, and industry specific workflow platforms.

These firms are generating steady, sometimes explosive revenue, while remaining under the public radar. Much like Cisco and Oracle during the early internet years, they form the backbone of the technology revolution.

The Stakes for Builders and Investors

Opportunities remain wide open. Those who identify and solve friction points in the AI stack, where adoption is slowed by cost, complexity, or performance gaps, can capture durable market positions. Investors who back such companies early stand to benefit from valuations that may grow faster than the headline grabbing model makers.

This wave is still building. For the entrepreneurs willing to move quickly, deliver measurable value, and plant their flag in a defensible niche, the upside could define a generation of wealth creation.