The basic crux of the article is that VC != technology investors, and that money spent in emerging markets on relatively commodity businesses can yield returns similiar to those seen in the 90s with tech businesses here, while here tech businesses are maturing and not returning the same as they used to.
I think this is a good thing for the world overall, the more people that come up to the middle class, the more people that will have disposable income to spend on products. I just think that there are plenty of promising ideas here to invest in as well if they start looking past Web 2.0 in favor of more concrete businesses.
Very nice to hear: "good thing for the world overall", how cute. However, quality of life basically translates into resources/population ratio within a country and that's a zero-sum game. The planet at the current level of technology couldn't even provide for all existing Chinese to suddenly start living like people in US/EU do, yet their populations, especially if measured in number of households, much more relevant than just counting heads, keeps growing.
And no amount of Internet innovation will solve the problem of diminishing clean water, oil, ocean fish, disappearing forests, soil erosion and increasingly bad air quality. Right now 1st world countries are basically "exporting" these problems to developing nations, eventually these issues will be averaged out: eventually China won't be so poor to accept our non-recyclable electronic garbage anymore, what then?
[+] [-] krschultz|17 years ago|reply
I think this is a good thing for the world overall, the more people that come up to the middle class, the more people that will have disposable income to spend on products. I just think that there are plenty of promising ideas here to invest in as well if they start looking past Web 2.0 in favor of more concrete businesses.
[+] [-] old-gregg|17 years ago|reply
And no amount of Internet innovation will solve the problem of diminishing clean water, oil, ocean fish, disappearing forests, soil erosion and increasingly bad air quality. Right now 1st world countries are basically "exporting" these problems to developing nations, eventually these issues will be averaged out: eventually China won't be so poor to accept our non-recyclable electronic garbage anymore, what then?
[+] [-] vaksel|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dpeq|17 years ago|reply