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Tech Bubble? Maybe, Maybe Not

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Re: Tech Bubble? Maybe, Maybe Not

#31
This one seems more mean-spirited and anti-intellectual than the last one, not that the last was an era of virtue and heroism. The social distances between employees and founders, and between founders and investors, have become huge (and yet so many people are in denial about their prospects). We're now in a world where age discrimination in a job that requires many years of focused experience to be good at it is the norm and almost taken for granted. Meanwhile, startup cultures are a lot more corporate than in the last bubble; sure, there are foosball tables, but there's also that "Agile" shit that exists to cement the idea of the programmer as a permanent subordinate.

I don't care much whether "the market" goes up or down, but I want us to get our fucking values back. How the fuck did "tech" beget Snapchat and Clinkle? Those founders aren't fit to work in tech companies, let alone fucking run them. How'd we let ourselves get colonized by the mainstream business culture and rendered their shitty outpost, instead of being something unique in the world?

The 2011-15 bubble wasn't the worst in terms of numerical overrating of technology companies, but I'm afraid that it will go down in history as the time in which Silicon Valley lost what remaining character it had and became a sideshow for the existing corporate elite, rather than a credible opposition to entrenched and malevolent private-sector stagnation.

Re: Tech Bubble? Maybe, Maybe Not

#32
somewhat off topic - it seems like there is a bubble in biotech. Something like 70% of the companies in the nasdaq biotech index have no earnings (losing money!) yet the index is up ~5x in the past few years. echoes of 2001 tech bubble and 2007 real estate bubble.

it does get irritating to hear about "uber as a bubble." Consider how much cash is flowing through uber right now, it is going to become/remain a massive business.

Re: Tech Bubble? Maybe, Maybe Not

#34
post #32

somewhat off topic - it seems like there is a bubble in biotech. Something like 70% of the companies in the nasdaq biotech index have no earnings (losing money!) yet the index is up ~5x in the past few years. echoes of 2001 tech bubble and 2007 real estate bubble. it does get irritating to hear about "uber as a bubble." Consider how much cash is flowing through uber right now, it is going to become/remain a massive b…

good point, but I think it's burst going to be relatively contained. My gut feeling it will not affect much since not many other industries are feeding off it. (I could be completely wrong here)

Tech on other hand is a different beast. It's bigger and a lot of things are feeding off it (real estate and online ads for example). If tech bubble bursts, it's effects can reach a lot further.

Re: Tech Bubble? Maybe, Maybe Not

#35

I think the strongest indication that there is a bubble is all the Smart People nervously chattering about there not being a bubble.

It's weird how this justification for "look a bubble!" has been consistently voted to the top of HN for its entire existence. Smart people have been chatting about their being or not being a bubble longer than Hacker News has been a thing.

> Is 'Web 2.0' Another Bubble? (2006)

[1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB116679843912957776

Re: Tech Bubble? Maybe, Maybe Not

#36

I think the strongest indication that there is a bubble is all the Smart People nervously chattering about there not being a bubble.

Pretty much: > Editor’s note: Bill Maris is president and managing partner at Google Ventures. Hold onto your wallet. Wall Streeters are moving to tech[1], as are retirement fund managers[2]. Bubbles only work as long as the Smart Money can profit by selling to more fools. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/25/technology/ruth-porat-goog... [2] http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/23/daily-report-privat...

Silicon Valley is the new Wall Street

Re: Tech Bubble? Maybe, Maybe Not

#37
post #25

To this excellent article I would add one fact. A huge difference between the dot com bubble and now is that Sarbanes-Oxley makes IPOs a lot less appealing. That is the most likely reason why acquisitions and late funding rounds have replaced IPOs. This also means that the amount of money that can pour into a bubble is less than the last time around. That said, bubbles usually are based a new theory about valuation f…

I think your theory about social networks is completely wrong. All social networks are not the same in terms of the subset they compete in.

Instagram in photos, and WhatsApp in messaging competed with Facebook in a subset of social networking.

All Facebook has to do is acquire winners in the new major subsets that bloom, and then the competition is over for each. It's a perpetually affordable game for FB to play, because each new blooming subset of social networking, is only going to be worth a fraction of the total Facebook corporation.

There has been no new Instagram since Instagram. Facebook + Instagram have in fact prevented any new Instagrams from succeeding, they already won.

It's likely that Facebook picked a winner in WhatsApp as well, at least for the vast majority of the markets they compete in. There will ultimately only be a few major messaging apps that matter, FB bought one of the few winners.

There has been no challenger to Facebook, the core system, in years. They won, it's over. There is no inbound next Friendster or MySpace to attempt to dethrone Facebook.

Where is Path? Where is Ello? (it's losing the little attention it had, that's where) Where is Diaspora? Where are the countless others that have tried? Irrelevant, that's where.

Facebook is worth so much because they have a monopoly in consumer social networking (in a lot of big markets), that is presently worth $3 billion per year in net income, and will probably be worth $6 billion per year within ~36 months.

Re: Tech Bubble? Maybe, Maybe Not

#38
post #35

I think the strongest indication that there is a bubble is all the Smart People nervously chattering about there not being a bubble.

It's weird how this justification for "look a bubble!" has been consistently voted to the top of HN for its entire existence. Smart people have been chatting about their being or not being a bubble longer than Hacker News has been a thing. > Is 'Web 2.0' Another Bubble? (2006) [1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB116679843912957776

Just because something is a long-lasting bubble doesn't meant it's not a bubble. The housing bubble lasted what, the better part of two decades?

Re: Tech Bubble? Maybe, Maybe Not

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much: > Editor’s note: Bill Maris is president and managing partner at Google Ventures. Hold onto your wallet. Wall Streeters are moving to tech[1], as are retirement fund managers[2]. Bubbles only work as long as the Smart Money can profit by selling to more fools. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/25/technology/ruth-porat-goog... [2] http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/23/daily-report-privat...

Silicon Valley is the new Wall Street

And before it was the new Wall Street in 2015, it was once before the new Wall Street circa 1999, the Frank Quattrone era.

Re: Tech Bubble? Maybe, Maybe Not

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much: > Editor’s note: Bill Maris is president and managing partner at Google Ventures. Hold onto your wallet. Wall Streeters are moving to tech[1], as are retirement fund managers[2]. Bubbles only work as long as the Smart Money can profit by selling to more fools. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/25/technology/ruth-porat-goog... [2] http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/23/daily-report-privat...

Silicon Valley is the new Wall Street

Where do you think the money for VC funds historically came from? It's probably less Wall Street these days now that there is so much home-grown cash (Google Ventures being an example).
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