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How tech’s defiance of economic gravity came to an abrupt end

economist.com

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Re: How tech’s defiance of economic gravity came to an abrupt end

#51

Post by paulryanrogers »

Avicebron wrote: post #34
georgebarnett wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree - tech _is_ software and it’s so ubiquitous that it’s essentially invisible.

Planes, trains, and automobiles are tech. Software is a specific subset, software is a subset of tolling and techniques that's applied to "tech" no more than circuit boards, wires, or the wheel. It doesn't have a special elevated status. The more people understand that the faster people will stop hero worshipping it.

Words can evolve. Here on this forum and in large parts of culture, 'technology' is any relatively recent innovation. Of which software is one of the more prominent examples.

Re: How tech’s defiance of economic gravity came to an abrupt end

#52

Post by ngoilapites »

georgebarnett wrote: post #27

With all industries are converting to software and every person on the planet moving towards owning a smartphone it surprises me that there’s an ongoing narrative that tech is collapsing.

Only economically non-sensical ventures will collapse. Tech will be always strong, but not always overvalued or able to open market with limitless VC capital.

Re: How tech’s defiance of economic gravity came to an abrupt end

#53

Post by voisin »

danaris wrote: post #45
voisin wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on why you think inflation was “artificially low”?

I read it as the interest rates being artificially low...

Ok but then if interest rates were artificially low, then you would expect inflation to be artificially high but it wasn’t (at least by official measures). So the parent commenter is saying anything would be extremely hot given the last decade plus of artificially low rates, which is the exactly opposite result from what one would expect.

(which begs the question: what does it mean to be artificially low? Compared to what?)

Re: How tech’s defiance of economic gravity came to an abrupt end

#54

Post by willcipriano »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #51
Avicebron wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Planes, trains, and automobiles are tech. Software is a specific subset, software is a subset of tolling and techniques that's applied to "tech" no more than circuit boards, wires, or the wheel. It doesn't have a special elevated status. The more people understand that the faster people will stop hero worshipping it.

Words can evolve. Here on this forum and in large parts of culture, 'technology' is any relatively recent innovation. Of which software is one of the more prominent examples.

Few would debate that the printing press is one of the most important pieces of tech humanity ever produced. At first it was used to print Bibles, but it was eventually used to print all sorts of other things. The philosophical texts that were later printed on the printing press were not a new "tech", but we pretend new apps for a iPhone are for some reason.

When we increase the surface area of a definition like you are here it makes words meaningless.

Re: How tech’s defiance of economic gravity came to an abrupt end

#55

Post by lmeyerov »

kingkongjaffa wrote: post #23

M&A and Private equity activity is down at the moment but it’s only down from the record high of post-covid liquidity. We had a year of uncertainty and semi stockpiling and then when the recovery steps were clearer a huge amount of pent-up investment happened in the following 12-18 months. Sentiment is mostly negative right now but deals are still being made, where they make sense.

There is down and there is cratered 80% YoY: https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/global-vc-funding-monthl...

So the question is what happens to VC-dependent companies - do exuberant times return and they continue their addiction, do they do even deeper cuts, wash out, ...?

Re: How tech’s defiance of economic gravity came to an abrupt end

#56

Post by MonkeyClub »

pigsty wrote: post #40
georgebarnett wrote: post #27

With all industries are converting to software and every person on the planet moving towards owning a smartphone it surprises me that there’s an ongoing narrative that tech is collapsing.

The fact everything uses software doesn’t mean Slack, a generic chat platform with dozens of absolutely identical products, being acquired for 27.7 billion dollars ever made sense. That generic software company was valued higher than entire industries that supply components that all hardware depends on. Tech isn’t collapsing. But valuations were and continue to be fuckin nuts for a lot of companies and are coming dow…

Yeah it sort of works like market self regulation, bubbling up before it reaches a calm simmer.

But it’s still fueled by hype, so unless a strong enough crash comes, it’ll keep bubbling up.

Re: How tech’s defiance of economic gravity came to an abrupt end

#58

Post by MonkeyClub »

Avicebron wrote: post #34
georgebarnett wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree - tech _is_ software and it’s so ubiquitous that it’s essentially invisible.

Planes, trains, and automobiles are tech. Software is a specific subset, software is a subset of tolling and techniques that's applied to "tech" no more than circuit boards, wires, or the wheel. It doesn't have a special elevated status. The more people understand that the faster people will stop hero worshipping it.

Heck, even toilet flushes are cybernetic devices in one sense, ie they work by virtue of a self regulating feedback loop.

It seems that with software we’re hell bent on verifying Arthur Clarke’s aphorism wrt sufficiently advanced tech being indistinguishable from magic.

Think language models, for a contemporary example.

Re: How tech’s defiance of economic gravity came to an abrupt end

#59

Post by spaceman_2020 »

willcipriano wrote: post #46
birdymcbird wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Soon” is mid 2024 at the earliest. The start ups haven’t really even begun to trim fat. Big tech like amazon, meta, google will increase attrition targets in addition to actual layoffs. I could turn out to be wrong but id bet there’s many more waves of cascading pain before before things turn other way. Turning other way doesnt mean we immediately go back to excess hiring, empire building, lack of focus, free uber r…

Right after the election, we learned that the employment numbers turned out to be cooked ( https://www.cnbc.com/video/2022/12/22/philadelphia-fed-sugge... ) that was in large part the justification for the rate hikes, I think they end in the next few months and start to decline this year.

My belief is that the moment rates start going down, there's going to be another massive asset bubble which will create tremendous inflationary pressure.

Historically, inflation has never come down so fast or so easily anywhere. So much of inflation is about belief and psychology. If a "good times are here again" belief takes hold, it's entirely possible that inflation will run amok, again.

Re: How tech’s defiance of economic gravity came to an abrupt end

#60

Post by georgebarnett »

pigsty wrote: post #40
georgebarnett wrote: post #27

With all industries are converting to software and every person on the planet moving towards owning a smartphone it surprises me that there’s an ongoing narrative that tech is collapsing.

The fact everything uses software doesn’t mean Slack, a generic chat platform with dozens of absolutely identical products, being acquired for 27.7 billion dollars ever made sense. That generic software company was valued higher than entire industries that supply components that all hardware depends on. Tech isn’t collapsing. But valuations were and continue to be fuckin nuts for a lot of companies and are coming dow…

Collaboration tools are some way from being systems of record and there is substantial difference between competitors. Generic chat apps are not yet useful enough (despite years of development) for most companies - IRC failing to win is evidence of this and so is the fact that companies aren’t switching en masse to run their infrastructure on whatever is the OSS flavour of the day. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen some day, but that day won’t be soon.

When coupled with the fact that there are still a huge number of companies which haven’t yet converted to using these tools and purchasing the market leader for a premium makes total sense.

With regards to component supply - companies that are producing unique chips are worth plenty, where as those that are making COTS components aren’t.

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