All this talk of bubble misses the fact that there is real growth happening in the technology sector.
The growth is a combination of many factors, by mostly it seems, the following:
* redistribution of services from a small office, small local market, to a small office but a global market. The models of today, aren't all that dissimilar to what they used to be, just the internet kills the road warrior salesman/support guys, and PayPal pretty much kills the international banking problems too.
* redistribution of premium telecoms based services from traditionally state controlled companies, to smaller, more agile and less restricted companies: this is a LOT of $$$. Look at the services that 5 years ago, people were talking about mCommerce - they are mostly online and ad-funded, app purchase funded (via Apple or Google, not the telcos), and soon to be Facebook credit funded.
* the depressed global market, making a traditional software engineering or marketing/sales job a riskier proposition, reducing relative risk of startups
* a generation of still young investors who have lived through a real boom/bust cycle, and stayed in the game, and understand at least one of the above factors.
Is there a bubble? Only if this growth collapses. I don't see any reason for it to. The economy will start to recover, the markets for apps will stabilise, and there will be some fallout, but don't confuse real growth for unfounded growth.
(What about the Yuri Milner move? Well, knowing two YC 10 W founders, I'd put whatever stupidly small % of his wealth was, of my own wealth into their company ANY day.)
The growth is a combination of many factors, by mostly it seems, the following:
* redistribution of services from a small office, small local market, to a small office but a global market. The models of today, aren't all that dissimilar to what they used to be, just the internet kills the road warrior salesman/support guys, and PayPal pretty much kills the international banking problems too.
* redistribution of premium telecoms based services from traditionally state controlled companies, to smaller, more agile and less restricted companies: this is a LOT of $$$. Look at the services that 5 years ago, people were talking about mCommerce - they are mostly online and ad-funded, app purchase funded (via Apple or Google, not the telcos), and soon to be Facebook credit funded.
* the depressed global market, making a traditional software engineering or marketing/sales job a riskier proposition, reducing relative risk of startups
* a generation of still young investors who have lived through a real boom/bust cycle, and stayed in the game, and understand at least one of the above factors.
Is there a bubble? Only if this growth collapses. I don't see any reason for it to. The economy will start to recover, the markets for apps will stabilise, and there will be some fallout, but don't confuse real growth for unfounded growth.
(What about the Yuri Milner move? Well, knowing two YC 10 W founders, I'd put whatever stupidly small % of his wealth was, of my own wealth into their company ANY day.)