Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital

Why it’s on the list: Perez’s model of the technological surge — installation period, frenzy, crash, then a deployment golden age — fitted to five revolutions from the canals to information technology. The reference text for anyone arguing that a bubble is a stage rather than a mistake.

Where I heard about it

• @mastersinvest — on X in December 2025, quoting Ben Thompson (“The definitive book on bubbles has long been Carlota Perez’s Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital”) alongside Howard Marks’s Is It a Bubble? memo.
• A saved Amazon link — I’d also saved it earlier on its own, with no recommender recorded.
• Unknown — noted in my “Books” note, September 2023, as “Carlotta Perez - books on technological revolutions,” alongside Engines That Move Markets (“more storytelling versions”).
• On Patrick Collison’s Bookshelf — Patrick Collison’s catalog of the physical books he owns (unflagged). Saved in Kyle’s April 19th, 2020 Roam daily note.

Connections

• Carlota Perez — author.
• Boom — Bubbles & The End of Stagnation — the read-library book working the same terrain.
• Technological Innovation · Capital Allocation · Historical Futurism — the three portfolio ideas this sits across.
• Venture Capital — where the installation-period argument gets applied.
• Bubble — the phenomenon, modelled as a recurring phase rather than an accident.
• Engines That Move Markets — Alasdair Nairn’s narrative history of technology investing, noted alongside Perez in the same September 2023 note.