Novelty Scam Pattern
New technology + rapid change = fertile ground for old scams in new wrappers.
Every era of rapid technological change becomes fertile ground for scams. The 1920s had radio, electricity, and aviation — and Ponzi. The dot-com era had bricks.com renames. Today AI, crypto, carbon credits, and electric airplanes serve the same role.
The mechanism is simple: when amazing things genuinely happen, people lower their threshold for believing the unbelievable. Con artists exploit that, and even legitimate companies bolt unrelated 'AI features' onto unrelated businesses to ride valuations.
The framework is a permanent suspicion filter applied whenever a deal's appeal depends on a hot technology label rather than on its underlying cash flows.
- When real magic is happening, people lower their threshold for fake magic.
- People want to look modern, so they prefer high-tech-flavoured investments.
- The same scams repeat each cycle in new packaging.
- Adding a buzzword to a business is cheaper than building real value.
- A business is judged by its cash flows, not by the era it sounds like it belongs to.
- Strip the technology labelRestate the pitch with all hot-technology terms removed. 'AI-powered juice flavour engine' becomes 'we sell juice'. If the business doesn't stand up without the label, the label is doing the selling.Pro tipTry describing the business as if it operated using boring 1990s technology — does it still make money?
- Identify the historical analogueFind the closest pre-existing version. A delivery app was Cosmo.com in 1999. A meme stock was a 1920s bucket-shop. Identifying the analogue tells you what failed before and why.
- Test cash flow independenceWould a 100% private owner be willing to fund this business indefinitely from cash flows? If the only path to wealth is rising stock price or VC markups, the value is narrative not operational.WarningCompanies five or six years old still burning cash and competing on price are unlikely to ever be cash-flow positive.
- Check who needs a bag holderAsk who's selling. VCs, insiders, or SPAC sponsors offloading to retail at a peak is the modern shape of the scam. Late-stage IPOs are increasingly exits, not capital raises.
- Apply a buzzword discountWhen a company's marketing leans heavily on the era's hottest buzzword, mentally discount the valuation until you've verified the buzzword reflects real capability, not branding.
Boyle cites Boo.com (a UK dot-com that allegedly burned through ~£1B in weeks) and Cosmo.com (1990s deliveroo equivalent that hand-delivered CDs from stores) as proto-versions of today's hyped delivery and lifestyle apps.
Boyle references data showing the number of companies mentioning AI strategy on earnings calls exploded — even where no real AI strategy exists. He suspects it's often just salespeople using ChatGPT to write pitches.
Boyle's Ponzi video reframed the 1920s context — a decade of genuine breakthroughs (Wright brothers, electricity, mass aviation) made magical-sounding investments easier to believe. He sees direct echoes today: companies renaming themselves to 'bricks.com' in 1999, juice companies adding pointless AI features in 2024, SPACs and Virgin Galactic-style space stocks pumping on futurism.