It’s been a singular year for tech, one that marked the apparent end to a heady, madcap boom that changed how we think about the industry.
Over the past dozen or so years, a tidal wave of money poured into a collection of technologies—from cloud computing and artificial intelligence to smartphones and two-sided marketplaces—that transformed whole industries and changed many aspects of how we live and work. Major businesses were born or grew into global giants, proving the durability of Silicon Valley’s underlying inspiration: that ideas that seem crazy or unworkable at first may yet prevail.