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After the Gold Rush

techcrunch.com

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Re: After the Gold Rush

#11

Post by amelius »

stephenhuey wrote: post #9
amelius wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the medical and biological fields is: you generally need expensive equipment. Also, you will need expensive certification. This is something that wasn't the case for software, so I guess this is also why this goldrush was so much different than anything else we've seen before.

Good point, but my medical friends' complaints tend to be about the software they have to use more than anything else. And on top of that there's a lack of software tools for a lot of things they do.

There is lots of good bioinformatics software. The problem is often that institutions don't want to pay for it, because open-source software is available with similar functionality (albeit with lacking user interfaces).

In my experience, it is very difficult to make money with scientific software in general, so I'm certainly not expecting a "goldrush" here.

Re: After the Gold Rush

#12

Post by venomsnake »

GreaterFool wrote: post #10

Now that TC announced it, it's official people! Time to close shop, pack your bags and leave. Startup gold-rush is anything but over. Tell me this: if not into startups, where will the money go to find possible returns? Negative interest rates, oil price can't find the bottom and stocks aren't really going anywhere either. So where will this money go?

Vancouver, Mayfair, Manhattan, San Francisco

Re: After the Gold Rush

#13

Post by stephenhuey »

onli wrote: post #5
stephenhuey wrote: post #3

He said: "Today’s tech behemoths aren’t the lumbering giants of yesteryear. They are leaner and meaner and more competitive precisely because they have co-opted the same technologies startups used to attack them." But this is far from true with the huge entrenched healthcare tech companies. Many of them haven't even begun to employ the newer software technologies. I'm down the street from the largest medical center i…

But he is covering that, isn't he? > Move into new fields that have not (yet) gone through this transition. Tech giants may have adapted (somewhat) to the startup threat, but there are other fields — healthcare, for instance — still trying to adjust to last decade’s technology. These will remain fertile ground for some time yet. However, we know that this is not an easy field for many reasons (regulations, importance…

Yes, I think that's exactly right. Perhaps a combination of regulations while a lot of other industries have also enjoyed the spotlight more in the past decade or two. Hence healthcare hasn't attracted as much software talent. A few days ago I got into a Twitter exchange with my insurance company explaining to them why they should secure their login form, not just their registration form. Hopefully the social media rep will actually pass along the recommendation to IT as promised but even with stringent HIPAA regulations it's clear the industry hasn't been able to hire as many competent people as you'd expect for such a vital industry.

Re: After the Gold Rush

#14

Post by venomsnake »

onli wrote: post #8
rco8786 wrote: post #4

It's somewhat clear that were headed for a bit of a downturn, but this article reeks of the "everything that could be invented has been invented" fallacy.

I think it is also kind of missing that you can't easily draw parallels with the past here, as the field we are mostly talking about – software making, I think – is the first(?) modern big industry field where the means of production are in the hand of the workers. You can't easily compete with car companies, cause most of us won't have the means to even produce a prototype. But nothing is stopping someone capable en…

There is lack of freely available hardware on which said os to run - a lot of companies try to be your gatekeepers.

The golden days like in the 90-s everything is PC, you can run whatever you want on PC are still somewhere ahead of us with mobile and IoT.

Re: After the Gold Rush

#15

Post by stephenhuey »

amelius wrote: post #11
stephenhuey wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point, but my medical friends' complaints tend to be about the software they have to use more than anything else. And on top of that there's a lack of software tools for a lot of things they do.

There is lots of good bioinformatics software. The problem is often that institutions don't want to pay for it, because open-source software is available with similar functionality (albeit with lacking user interfaces). In my experience, it is very difficult to make money with scientific software in general, so I'm certainly not expecting a "goldrush" here.

I agree to some degree (!) but I believe a lot of the software used by medical personnel in their daily routines could use an overhaul, plus numerous other modern tools could be given to them for daily use.

Re: After the Gold Rush

#16

Post by marcosdumay »

GreaterFool wrote: post #10

Now that TC announced it, it's official people! Time to close shop, pack your bags and leave. Startup gold-rush is anything but over. Tell me this: if not into startups, where will the money go to find possible returns? Negative interest rates, oil price can't find the bottom and stocks aren't really going anywhere either. So where will this money go?

The usual way that this unfolds is that first the money disappears (into thin air, exactly where it came from earlier), and then investments dry up.

Has the US experimented monetary deflation since the half of last year?

Re: After the Gold Rush

#17

Post by jMyles »

GreaterFool wrote: post #10

Now that TC announced it, it's official people! Time to close shop, pack your bags and leave. Startup gold-rush is anything but over. Tell me this: if not into startups, where will the money go to find possible returns? Negative interest rates, oil price can't find the bottom and stocks aren't really going anywhere either. So where will this money go?

> Now that TC announced it, it's official people! Time to close shop, pack your bags and leave.

I had the same thought - TC is pretty much an eye-roll-and-move-on for me at this point.

However...

> Tell me this: if not into startups, where will the money go to find possible returns? Negative interest rates, oil price can't find the bottom and stocks aren't really going anywhere either. So where will this money go?

I think that the point here isn't that entrepreneurship is suddenly dead, but rather that

> [the big players] have co-opted the same technologies startups used to attack them” and so “until there is another fundamental technology disruption, the window of opportunity for startups is limited to more traditional markets with less competitive players.”

The various *AAS models may be coming to the end of their usefulness as a disruptive media, but there's plenty of "fundamental technology disruption" ahead: mesh networking, crypto-blockchains, embedded, VR, and on and on.

Re: After the Gold Rush

#18

Post by johnrob »

All of these claims are true in any market, but we ignore them during booms because fundraising is easier (and de-risks our startup involvement). The only novelty in this article is a return to honesty.

Re: After the Gold Rush

#19

Post by bsder »

No the social gold rush is gone. Everybody who wishes to get online is online already with something and you have displace that.

And "gold rush" is a good term--"land grab" might be better. The fact that the "disruptive" companies are all now skirting or outright flouting the law shows that the easy land is taken.

If it's highly profitable, it's either illegal or difficult. Easy and profitable means that, even if you're first, the horde is inbound.

Those of us with real products that can't simply be done with 4 20-year-olds and a dog in Ukraine? We're chugging along, thanks.

Yeah, raising money is getting really annoying, but, if we can't, we'll bootstrap. Funny that, bootstrapping is an option when people pay you money.

And, do remember, the people who made all the money in the gold rush weren't the miners, it was the people who sold shovels and alcohol.

Re: After the Gold Rush

#20

Post by joslin01 »

It's funny because the means through which big business tech companies have "co-opted the same technologies startups used to attack them" is through buying said startups. So no, I don't think it's all over.

You can't type on a keyboard and make an automobile factory that can compete with the big car companies, but in software, you pretty much can. It's a pretty chaotic market for this reason even if there are big dogs.

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