Is there a new bubble in Silicon Valley?
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Instagram Founders Were Helped by Bay Area Connections - NYTimes.com
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Correction to this article “I CAN’T decide what I like poking more: you, or these bubbles,” says bubble-blowing Kim Kardashian, a reality-TV star, in a new application for Facebook (see right). Cameo Stars, the company responsible for this innovation, lets Facebookers send to their online friends clips of minor celebrities mouthing generic greetings. Besides enriching the world’s culture, the firm may also make a fortune. But gloomy types wonder if the profusion of highly valued internet start-ups with lighter-than-air business plans is evidence of a different kind of bubble.
Internet start-ups: Another bubble? | The Economist
I've been pretty clear as of late that I think the market for investing in web startups is getting overheated. When I talk to some people about this, they say "you should shut down and ride out the bubble on the beach." To which I say "we don't think we can time markets."
A VC: Pacing Yourself
We have enjoyed an amazing run in the web startup and investing space over the past five or six years. In this sector of startupland, company creation is up, investment is up, there are plenty of success stories, and not all of them are based on quick flips and takeouts. There is real revenue flowing through web companies and many web startups formed in the last five or six years are operating profitably. It has been good to be a web entrepreneur and a web VC, and I think it will continue to be for quite some time. However, there are a few storm coulds out there that we need to be watching.
A VC: Storm Clouds
Wow, finally people noticed. All it took was Google to supposedly offer $3.5 million to an engineer to not go to Facebook . Now, that is what rational people would call cutting off the nose to spite the face. But these are not rational times. I have been writing about the escalating irrationality in Silicon Valley, which for some odd reason exists detached from the global economic reality. I think the competition for “hot” deals is making people crazy and I am seeing many more unnatural acts from investors happening.
Irrationality, Welcome Back to Silicon Valley: Tech News «
There is No Angel Bubble. There are Many Angel Bubbles. « Startup Boy
The total amount of additional capital flowing through the Silicon Valley early-stage ecosystem, thanks to Super-Angels and newly minted millionaires, is on the order of half-a-billion dollars or so. It’s no more than a middling-sized VC fund. Would the emergence of a new VC fund be considered a bubble? Would the collapse of one signal disaster? Furthermore, most of this capital is replacing traditional Series A deals. As we say around here, “Seed is the New Series A.”
If you read the blogs, you’ve been hearing intelligent venture capitalists like Fred Wilson and Bill Gurley lament the bubbly conditions they’re facing. [Side Note: If you're reading this and not Fred Wilson and Bill Gurley's blogs, you need to free up five hours and read everything they've written in the past six months. These are two venture capitalists in the prime of their careers who are operating at a very high level.
Yes, The Angel Financing Market Is A Massive Bubble -- So Raise As Much Money As You Can!
What Angel Investing & Florida Condos Have in Common | Both Sides of the Table
It was written as the yearbook quote of the smartest seniors as I was finishing my freshman year. It has always stood with me. I have had a low bullshit meter.Associated Press To technophiles, it might seem strange to think of people ever watching TV more than they surfed the Web. But the stat marks a big shift for the country at large; this is the first year in Forrester’s survey that people have reported spending equal amounts of time on the two activities — 13 hours a week. And it’s not because people are spending less time watching TV; those numbers have remained about the same.
NO, according to fundamentals
Bubble or bust? Nobody knows anything - cdixon's posterous
Sequoia Capital is widely (and, in my opinion, correctly) considered to be the best venture capital firm on the planet. Their list of hits include Apple, Oracle, Cisco, Atari, EA, Google, Yahoo, and Paypal (and that's just counting the investments of two of their partners - Don Valentine and Mike Moritz). They didn't include numbers on the X axis but since average recessions take about 2 years from which to recover, the implication was this recovery would take much longer:. There . It doesn't so much matter to startups per se. What matters is the effect of the changing angel dynamics on startups. More startups are forming and more are getting initial funding , which increases their average life-span.
Increasing Series A financing risk for software/Web startups - Gabriel Weinberg's Blog
What Percentage of 2010 Seed Deals Won’t Raise The Next Round?
There have been a number of thoughtful “early warning sign” posts in the past few days including one from Fred Wilson ( Storm Clouds ), one from Mark Suster ( What Angel Investing & Florida Condos Have in Common ), and Roger Ehrenberg ( Investing in a frenzied market ). The seed investing phenomenon of 2010 has been awesome to watch and participate in. The velocity of activity from individual angels , angel groups, seed VCs (the correct phrase for most of the “super angels” which have now raised actual funds), and even traditional VCs has been on a steep climb throughout the year. When the numbers are tallied up at the end of the year (I’m sure someone will do it – and it won’t be me) I expect there will be all kinds of new records set. But the warning signs from Fred, Mark, and Roger are worth reading and pondering carefully.Dotcom bubble 2.0 - 2011, the next dotcom bust?