It’s September 2008. I’m moving abroad for grad school. I’m not thinking about stocks, investment banks, the real estate bubble, or the job market. I’m thinking about how to survive in France without speaking French, how to find an apartment late in the season without a guarantor—and probably how to get over an ex.
I’m not sure what hit me first, but I think it was that infamous John Bird and John Fortune sketch, “The Subprime Crisis.” It popped up somewhere in whatever passed for a YouTube feed back then. To this day, it’s still one of the most hilariously accurate takes on finance you’ll ever watch.
Little did I know what was coming. My French classmates were already struggling to land internships or entry-level jobs. Then one day, a colleague at my internship asked out loud:
“Hey guys, did you know Greece is on the brink of collapse?”
I wasn’t much of a news follower back then—too focused on sharpening my coding skills—but that question marked the beginning of a decade of chaos: political turmoil, economic collapse, currency debates, xenophobia, and the rise of far-right nationalism. A full-blown shitshow.
So when I read that SoftBank sold all of its stake in OpenAI, I felt an itch. Those 2008–2009 memories resurfaced, and I couldn’t help wondering if people 10 or 15 years younger than me have any idea what a real financial crisis feels like.
On the other hand, given the wild rallies in stocks and real estate over the past five years—with ZIRP, retail trading frenzies, and crypto gamblers—it’s fair to ask whether a downturn might actually be healthy.
The problem is, downturns don’t come with warning labels. You never know how low they’ll go—or how long they’ll last.
Fragile economies will take the hardest hits, while those less tied to AI or Big Tech might hold up better. But history suggests few truly escape.
Do we need a “stock market reset”? Maybe. Analysts love to say that corrections are good for market health.
The problem is, corrections are rarely contained.