This actually reminds me of something that's been bugging me for a while.
If you're Mark Zuckerberg, or Paul Graham, one of the google execs, or basically any high-profile tech person...do you still get to sit at the lunch table with everybody else?
I love talking to people here on HN, or joking around on reddit. I used to be very active on slashdot, and had a lot of really interesting discussions with people there. I can do this because nobody really cares who I am. If I say that I think the iPad is stupid, it doesn't make the news.
So if you're Paul Graham, and you just want to jump into a discussion and "shoot the shit" with people, how do you do it?
Especially if you're Mark Zuckerberg, do you not even get to use the product that you're in charge of because everything you say is going to be dissected by thousands of bloggers and tech journalists? Do you still get to post to slashdot without people thinking that it's an indicator of where facebook is heading?
I think if you're running a big company you have to be cautious about what you say in public. If you're just an investor you can take more risks.
Spending a decade publishing essays that got port-scanned by forum trolls has also helped. It has trained me to make sure what I'm saying is true before I hit submit. (Or at least within a few minutes of hitting submit; I added the delay feature to HN explicitly for this purpose.)
The first time I was shocked. I had just moved here and was looking for some curry paste, so I went to Ranch 99 in Mountain View. I turn around the corner, and bam, Mark Zuckerberg and his girl. We had this weird eye contact thing.
I walked around the store a couple of times, running into him again in a similar fashion (I didn't know where anything was at), and ended up being behind him in line.
Second time was in PA, I was just walking downtown to the Vans store, and same thing. Saw him on the street, made eye contact, etc...
Next time I see him I'll probably say hi, but nobody was bugging him. I guess I was surprised that somebody that high profile would be out and about, even in a place like SV.
Yeah, having just read (and responded to) that comment and then seeing the story, I find it a bit irritating the way a reasonable comment is taken out of context and turned into a sensationalistic headline.
The way I read PG's original comment was not "There Is No Bubble", but rather "Internet companies are a lot cheaper, smarter, and overall better than they were in the 90s".
On a similar note, Barack Obama mentioned in his interview with Fox last week that one of the downsides of being a President is that he lost the ability to have casual conversations with people. A public figure in any domain has to live with this.
If you're Mark Zuckerberg, or Paul Graham,...do you still get to sit at the lunch table with everybody else?
This is such a funny question. I'm the co-founder of http://LetsLunch.com: we let you apply for lunches with Silicon Valley celebrities and you'd be surprised how approachable they can be.
But really, we are a way for fellow HNers to meet each other without the obstruction of a computer screen.
That's because we believe in is that there are plenty of brilliant people you could meet (over lunch...) who are not famous yet. Those are the people you want to get to know. Meeting pg is just icing on the cake :-)
I have a project about it... I am sure more than one of these guys are posting anonymously on the Internet... the challenge is discovering their aliases.
My simple response is, "Denial is a river in Egypt." Paul Graham is not an impartial observer in this debate. YC (and by extension him) are some of the loudest advocates for the current startup generation. Should a bubble burst around them, YC would stand to loose tremendously in money and prestige regardless of the merits of their individual investments.
Your comment is funny but true. People will always find rational reasons to explain away sky high valuations. Even the first time around, Pets.com had a very high market potential if it capitalized successfully on projected internal sales growth rates and expanded to the size of the pet care market.
I take all these comments very very lightly. In my experience, the surest sign of a bubble is when the non-savvy bench investors in your life start talking about "great investment opportunities". When 9/10 people in your office are buying a house as an investment opportunity, there is probably a bubble. When 9/10 of your office is investing in the secondary facebook market (or something similar) chances are there is a bubble.
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.)
Even if there is a tech bubble, so what. You just need to do due diligence when dealing with a company. Does the company offer true value or is it a fad? For example, FaceBook. yes, there are millions of people on there, but their revenue source is from ads that have little ROI. Zynga is another one, how long can you convince people to keep buying dresses for your virtual pig?
Except - unless I misinterpreted it - PG didn't quite say that. He pointed out the differences between the tech bubble then and what's occurring now. Sure, I'm nitpicking, but I think it's an important distinction.
If there's a bubble, it will surely be different than before and isn't it a bit early to make sweeping predictions? PG didn't make any.
I am definitely skeptical of this article's conclusion.
Just because Yuri Milner and Mark Zuckerberg are poised to make a lot of money doesn't mean that there are a lot of people out there who are going to hop on tech stocks because they look hot and lose a lot of money.
It's certainly true that Facebook, LinkedIn and other tech companies are making something that has an impact on the lives of others, but that doesn't mean that valuations aren't going to get horribly out of whack.
In fact, Zuckerberg and Milner stand to make a big pile of money if valuations do get horribly out of whack. Just as the banks did during the mortgage loan fiasco.
Even if there is a bubble, who cares (in these parts at least)? Back in 2001, you needed money to build a product. The bubble bursting meant no money, and thus no product. These days a downturn won't prevent you from building something.
I haven't experienced the first bubble, so no context there. However at least from my own experience with VC and angel investors, they are all quite risk averse and insist on seeing solid traction/revenue befor even considering investment. Among all the most popular sites, Twitter might be the only bad example and exception here without a solid revenue model, whereas Facebook, Linkedin, and Groupon all boasted a stellar revenue already. I do think the investors have learnt from the last bubble and changed the mentality a lot.
Does this need to be said? Is there anyone suggesting that there is a tech bubble like there was in 2000?
I mean that literally. Is there a single person on the face of the earth voicing that opinion? Because I haven't heard it.
The tech bubble in 2000 was more than overvalued companies, over hyped stories, and big promises. What I see now is the same thing that happens every day in other financial sectors.
[+] [-] blhack|15 years ago|reply
This actually reminds me of something that's been bugging me for a while.
If you're Mark Zuckerberg, or Paul Graham, one of the google execs, or basically any high-profile tech person...do you still get to sit at the lunch table with everybody else?
I love talking to people here on HN, or joking around on reddit. I used to be very active on slashdot, and had a lot of really interesting discussions with people there. I can do this because nobody really cares who I am. If I say that I think the iPad is stupid, it doesn't make the news.
So if you're Paul Graham, and you just want to jump into a discussion and "shoot the shit" with people, how do you do it?
Especially if you're Mark Zuckerberg, do you not even get to use the product that you're in charge of because everything you say is going to be dissected by thousands of bloggers and tech journalists? Do you still get to post to slashdot without people thinking that it's an indicator of where facebook is heading?
[+] [-] pg|15 years ago|reply
Spending a decade publishing essays that got port-scanned by forum trolls has also helped. It has trained me to make sure what I'm saying is true before I hit submit. (Or at least within a few minutes of hitting submit; I added the delay feature to HN explicitly for this purpose.)
[+] [-] juiceandjuice|15 years ago|reply
The first time I was shocked. I had just moved here and was looking for some curry paste, so I went to Ranch 99 in Mountain View. I turn around the corner, and bam, Mark Zuckerberg and his girl. We had this weird eye contact thing.
I walked around the store a couple of times, running into him again in a similar fashion (I didn't know where anything was at), and ended up being behind him in line.
Second time was in PA, I was just walking downtown to the Vans store, and same thing. Saw him on the street, made eye contact, etc...
Next time I see him I'll probably say hi, but nobody was bugging him. I guess I was surprised that somebody that high profile would be out and about, even in a place like SV.
[+] [-] dasil003|15 years ago|reply
The way I read PG's original comment was not "There Is No Bubble", but rather "Internet companies are a lot cheaper, smarter, and overall better than they were in the 90s".
[+] [-] schintan|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alain94040|15 years ago|reply
This is such a funny question. I'm the co-founder of http://LetsLunch.com: we let you apply for lunches with Silicon Valley celebrities and you'd be surprised how approachable they can be.
But really, we are a way for fellow HNers to meet each other without the obstruction of a computer screen.
That's because we believe in is that there are plenty of brilliant people you could meet (over lunch...) who are not famous yet. Those are the people you want to get to know. Meeting pg is just icing on the cake :-)
[+] [-] juiceandjuice|15 years ago|reply
Not really a fan, but whatever.
(My Personal Opinion: I got the feeling he sort of has a sensationalist persona, but I guess that's what you need to be a "journalist" these days)
[+] [-] wslh|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] arepb|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leftnode|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jburwell|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chc|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scott_s|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barrybe|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] c2|15 years ago|reply
I take all these comments very very lightly. In my experience, the surest sign of a bubble is when the non-savvy bench investors in your life start talking about "great investment opportunities". When 9/10 people in your office are buying a house as an investment opportunity, there is probably a bubble. When 9/10 of your office is investing in the secondary facebook market (or something similar) chances are there is a bubble.
[+] [-] DanI-S|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkr-hn|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pessimist|15 years ago|reply
I'm mildly skeptical - Silicon Valley VCs appear to be as affected by herd mentality as everyone else.
[+] [-] Swannie|15 years ago|reply
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.)
[+] [-] juiceandjuice|15 years ago|reply
I'm writing a post on HN about a article about a post on HN.
[+] [-] nhangen|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jbhelms|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nchlswu|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] knowtheory|15 years ago|reply
Just because Yuri Milner and Mark Zuckerberg are poised to make a lot of money doesn't mean that there are a lot of people out there who are going to hop on tech stocks because they look hot and lose a lot of money.
It's certainly true that Facebook, LinkedIn and other tech companies are making something that has an impact on the lives of others, but that doesn't mean that valuations aren't going to get horribly out of whack.
In fact, Zuckerberg and Milner stand to make a big pile of money if valuations do get horribly out of whack. Just as the banks did during the mortgage loan fiasco.
[+] [-] johnrob|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clare|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] p90x|15 years ago|reply
I mean that literally. Is there a single person on the face of the earth voicing that opinion? Because I haven't heard it.
The tech bubble in 2000 was more than overvalued companies, over hyped stories, and big promises. What I see now is the same thing that happens every day in other financial sectors.
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