Originally published in Entrepreneur Magazine

By Jeff Harbach

As they say, the past is prologue, and that is perhaps truer in tech than any other sector. How else can we explain how a deal to merge AT&T and Time Warner makes sense in 2016, when AOL’s deal to buy that same media giant just a decade ago was considered such an unmitigated catastrophe?

Brad Feld, founder of TechStars and the Foundry Group, describes the deal as a function of the cyclical nature of hype as a new technology takes hold.

“The premise of the AOL acquisition and the premise of the AT&T acquisition 15 years later is the same: [It’s] that you need to get this linkage between the content and the network layer,” Feld said, speaking during a break at the Kauffman Fellows Reunion Summit in Kansas City this week.

“That premise is still very valid.”

Read the full article at https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/284219

Jeff Harbach is President and CEO of Kauffman Fellows.