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But we saved everything 🙂.
Ethan Mollick references striking examples of market enthusiasm for sudden industry pivots. In 2018, Kodak announced a shift to become a crypto company, leading to a notable spike in its stock price. Similarly, in 1998, Zapata, originally an oil firm founded by the Bush family and later a fish meal company, rebranded itself and entered the market as an internet stock via an IPO.
These cases illustrate how markets have responded with significant interest—and sharp gains—to companies tying themselves to emerging trends.
Mollick has previously observed that superhuman AI could achieve the fastest financial returns in markets, with developers likely to keep such systems private before broader release, according to a recent article. In a separate piece, he criticized the use of "tokens" as the term for digital currencies, describing it as a missed creative opportunity for the sector in a previous analysis. Both perspectives offer context to his broader commentary on how new narratives can drive market interest.