Here’s a cautionary tale for you.

Before Mark Zuckerberg became the darling of the age of social, there was young (inexperienced) BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti, the Sam Altman of his day. When BuzzFeed launched two decades ago, it was the darling of the digital publishing world, “building its audience through listicles before expanding into a newsroom to challenge stalwarts like the New York Times,” noted MSN. Peretti was the genius who, as MarketWatch put it, “had seemingly cracked the code for social-media virality, and would soon become one of the first digital-media startups to achieve unicorn status with a valuation of over $1 billion.”

“Fast forward to 2026 and, for many, the result couldn’t have turned out worse. Gawker was forced to shut down under the weight of lawsuits, Vice Media filed for bankruptcy and is a shadow of itself, and BuzzFeed now warns it could go out of business entirely this year.”

And so much for buzz. Disruption is easy. Follow through is hard and does any of this sound familiar in this frothy AI-driven investment landscape?

So what went wrong?

“I actually think their problems are…more about the overhang of a whole era in which investors and executives imagined a totally different cost structure for media that never materialized,” said Ben Smith, who built BuzzFeed’s award-winning news division,” MarketWatch reported.

Again, sound familiar? It’s that pesky P/L thing.

“Through much of its heyday, BuzzFeed saw its revenue grow every year, but it could never quite close the gap on losses that ran as high as $50 million annually.”

We don’t understand how the tech community believes, considering the lessons from the first and second iterations, that all reason and logic and yea, even the basic tenets of business can be suspended while the new industry establishes itself. Making it up as you go along and figuring it out – meaning is this a sustainable business – as you go along are two completely different things.  And the latter is as important as the former, if not more so.

There’s no doubt that AI is changing the world and has created many a newly-minted entrepreneurs who can launch a newco in under a week. What wild times we live in and even if you have managed to suss out a revenue stream, even better, but do keep in mind that pesky little issue that is what’s amounting to Peretti’s and Buzzfeed’s probable demise: the ‘L’ side of the equation. You may not have to code to write software thanks to vibe coding, but you still have to know basic math, meaning balancing the ledger. And preferably coming up in the black.

And this just in:  States Are Slamming the Brakes on Data Centers. Can the AI Industry Handle It?” postulates  BuiltIn. “A growing number of states want to temporarily halt the construction of new data centers to address mounting energy and cost concerns. The effort aims to protect communities, but it could also test the sustainability of the AI industry’s breakneck growth.”

Oregan is looking to address that growth by directing the Oregon Public Utility Commission to create a new rate classification for data centers and crypto mines. In doing so, the state would ensure that ordinary Oregonians wouldn’t bear the cost of data centers’ expansion.

Which means who will bear those costs?

Companies may be downsizing their offices as a result of AI taking over large swaths of jobs, but how long will it be before startups – and the bigger players – find themselves faced with ‘real estate’ fees of a different stripe, re data center fees for power consumption. They’ll figure out the pass-along fees. We’re sure there’s already an AI for that.

Looking at the arc of technology, the question no one asks is: has the tech industry created as many if not more problems than it solves? It makes our lives much easier, to be sure – at a price.  Censorship and the loss of our privacy have been collateral damage as part of the tech legacy to date, as the price for that convenience. With AI, data centers are taking over the landscape and electricity costs surging in local communities. “Prices, for example, surged by 13% in Virginia, 16% in Illinois and 12% in Ohio.

The age of AI is hitting people literally where they live, and leaving communities to pick up the tab may well be a bridge too far.

Especially if AI is going to take over all jobs, as the prophets of this new age say.

Considering BuzzFeed and how Peretti put his focus on being the darling of the attention economy, prophet though he might have seemed to be for his time, we’re not convinced that the disappearance of BuzzFeed will exactly count as a loss. Onward and forward.