Silicon Valley's tendency to value storytelling and image over substance in the tech sector.

• In Silicon Valley, technical ideas often overshadow business fundamentals, with leaders celebrated for their showmanship.
• Success is often attributed to those who can sell a compelling story and appear as visionary geniuses.
• Venture capitalists and founders engage in a symbiotic relationship, fueled by the desire for radical ideas and capital investment.

The rise and subsequent questioning of Big Data's revolutionary potential and its actual impact on businesses.

• Big Data was championed as a transformative technology with vast potential for both public and private sectors.
• Despite the promise of Big Data, the reality was that many consumer startups and SaaS companies failed to become profitable even after IPOs.
• The trend shifted from simple analytics to a need for terabytes of data and advanced analysis tools, leading to the emergence of B2B startups catering to these demands.

The widespread corporate embrace of Big Data and the subsequent demand for technology and consulting services.

• Corporations invested heavily in Big Data technologies, fearing disruption by tech startups and seeking to remain competitive.
• This led to a surge in demand for data scientists, software engineers, and cloud services, benefiting cloud providers and B2B enterprises.
• Consulting firms profited by offering expertise and implementation services to both startups and Fortune 500 companies.

How Big Data influenced the rise of engineers' influence in organizational decision making.

• The Big Data trend led to a shift where engineers gained significant influence over technological decisions within companies.
• Developers became the gatekeepers of technological adoption, often driven by the potential for personal career advancement.
• Engineers' decisions were based on trending technologies' popularity rather than concrete business contributions.

The parallel between the past hype of Big Data and the current enthusiasm for AI, and the potential for repeating past mistakes.

• AI is becoming the new buzzword in tech, following the same pattern of hype and investment as Big Data.
• Skepticism is necessary given the lack of tangible results from previous tech trends.
• The tech industry's habit of overpromising and underdelivering continues with AI, and the likely winners and losers are already becoming apparent.