5 ms·

Do you have any data to support these statements? This reads as FUD as-is. Not saying that's the case, I'm not in the startup scene per se, but on the face of i

by deelowe 11y ago

Do you have any data to support these statements? This reads as FUD as-is. Not saying that's the case, I'm not in the startup scene per se, but on the face of it, this seems overly pessimistic.

hueving 11y ago
Data to support what? It's well known that common stock gets wiped out in any kind of devaluation.
- deelowe 11y ago
  The OP is suggesting there is a trend of sorts. My interpretation is that she/he is suggesting there is something akin to a "pump and dump" scheme going on in SV right now. That's a bold accusation. I've not seen evidence of this, but perhaps I'm missing something here. What I have seen evidence of is a slowing economy and a shift towards more conservative investments. It happened in the early 2000s, in 2008, and it seems to be happening now.
  - gmarx 11y ago
    Pump and dump implies that it is being done on purpose. I think what we have here is a kind of functional pump and dump. Most or at least many of the participants are sincere but there are some who get paid either way. They are just siphoning off some of the cheap money all the central banks have been printing
tayo42 11y ago
To me, it seems like some people are looking forward and are excited about a silicon Valley collapse.
- code4tee 11y ago
  Excited might not be the right word, but there's no question a lot of people are encouraged to see this happening. That's not schadenfreude but rather for the tech sector to have long term health and innovation built around solid businesses with real revenues and profits the silliness of the last few years needs to stop.
- w1ntermute 11y ago
  It will have a cleansing effect for our ecosystem, much as forest fires do for theirs. The arrogance and irrational exuberance that has become commonplace among founders and VCs will be curtailed, and rent & traffic may become somewhat manageable.
  - kasey_junk 11y ago
    And lots of engineers will be out of work (or working for much less pay, in much more traditional organizations)...at least if the last bubble pop is any indication.
    - w1ntermute 11y ago
      Which is certainly unfortunate, but it has to happen sooner or later. The whole "STEM shortage" hysteria (see FWD.us[0]) is nothing more than a shameless attempt to drive down engineering wages by increasing enrollment in CS programs, pumping up H1B allocations, and wage fixing[1]. Tech execs and investors love to complain about having to pay six figure salaries to the engineers doing all the real work, all while carting home hundreds of millions themselves in just severance pay[2], despite running companies into the ground, often because of their inability to perform basic management tasks correctly[3,4,5]. 0: http://www.fwd.us/ http://www.fwd.us/ 1: https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/ https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valle... 2: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2015/12/04/marissa-mayer-severance-benefits/76781384/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2015/12/04/maris... 3: http://nypost.com/2016/01/18/marissa-mayers-job-safety-joke-doesnt-sit-well-with-workers/ http://nypost.com/2016/01/18/marissa-mayers-job-safety-joke-... 4: http://www.businessinsider.com/eric-jackson-slams-yahoo-for-polyvore-acquisition-2015-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/eric-jackson-slams-yahoo-for-... 5: https://www.atlantic.net/blog/how-elon-musk-ceo-of-telsa-motors-stole-my-car/ https://www.atlantic.net/blog/how-elon-musk-ceo-of-telsa-mot...
      - splintercell 11y ago
        Any productive activity is a sum of the 3 factors of production: Land/Natural Goods + Labor + Capital If you increase any one of these factors, you get more production (i.e. more prosperity). For instance, Capital: if Chinese/Russian billionaires decide to invest all their money in American companies in America, then it would result in huge economic growth. Similarly Natural Goods: If prices of oil fall drastically, or lots of natural goods (even land) are discovered, then again there will be increased production of goods (i.e. more prosperity). Finally, Labor: if labor prices fall drastically, or labor force is increased, again more production will happen. Prosperity will ensue. The first two makes sense to most people, but somehow the third point doesn't because most people are part of the labor force therefore emotions kick in. The simple logic you're demonstrating is a childish whining: > Tech execs and investors love to complain about having to pay six figure salaries to the engineers doing all the real work, all while carting home hundreds of millions themselves in just severance pay< The whole job of tech execs and investors is to increase production. Acquiring capital for cheap (lower interest rates) would do the job, acquiring land/natural goods for cheap (like moving office to a cheaper part of the town) would also do the job, and finally getting cheap labor would also do the same thing. Complaining against a businessman trying to find cheaper labor is like complaining against the QA for trying to find bugs in your code.
- fsckin 11y ago
  After SF collapses, housing prices will drop and the Phoenix will rise again.
  - tgb29 11y ago
    Phoenix is still growing and the state of Arizona will benefit from the changes in California.
  - mikeryan 11y ago
    That's not a consistent scenario with what happened last time the tech bubble burst. Believe it or not most folks in the Bay Area don't work for tech startups. It would take a combination of a bunch of market forces to drive housing prices down here.
- enraged_camel 11y ago
  You call it collapse, I call it normalization.
- CPLX 11y ago
  Bubbles are incredibly inefficient, they send huge amounts of very valuable resources (money, but also things like people, creativity, press attention) into situations where they are ultimately squandered. They are like wars, they can waste the promise of an entire generation, never to be recovered. Nobody wants to see a collapse for collapse's sake, but there is quite a bit of social good in avoiding or deflating an asset bubble, be it in residential mortgages or late stage technology companies.
  - paulpauper 11y ago
    As if the government does a better job managing money, which is why the concept of 'exit' is appealing to some in Silicon Valley. New technologies emerge from bubbles. The only way to do away with the boom bust cycle is to do away with capitalism itself.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      You don't have to argue for government to notice that bubbles are inefficient and therefore not desirable.
  - federico3 11y ago
    THIS
- 27182818284 11y ago
  >To me, it seems like some people are looking forward and are excited about a silicon Valley collapse. There is absolutely this attitude present. I've heard it both in the Midwest and out west in San Francisco and Oakland both. I can even understand it to an extant, because although I am in the not-a-bubble camp, I am annoyed when I see media and others acting like "Uber for pizza" is a mind-blowing idea.
- gmarx 11y ago
  I am. Maybe rents will stop going up. Maybe the Harvard MBAs will take off their red hoodies and go work on Wall Street or maybe for old companies that make stuff in the Midwest

by deelowe 11y ago

Do you have any data to support these statements? This reads as FUD as-is. Not saying that's the case, I'm not in the startup scene per se, but on the face of it, this seems overly pessimistic.

hueving 11y ago

Data to support what? It's well known that common stock gets wiped out in any kind of devaluation.

deelowe 11y ago
The OP is suggesting there is a trend of sorts. My interpretation is that she/he is suggesting there is something akin to a "pump and dump" scheme going on in SV right now. That's a bold accusation. I've not seen evidence of this, but perhaps I'm missing something here. What I have seen evidence of is a slowing economy and a shift towards more conservative investments. It happened in the early 2000s, in 2008, and it seems to be happening now.
- gmarx 11y ago
  Pump and dump implies that it is being done on purpose. I think what we have here is a kind of functional pump and dump. Most or at least many of the participants are sincere but there are some who get paid either way. They are just siphoning off some of the cheap money all the central banks have been printing

tayo42 11y ago

To me, it seems like some people are looking forward and are excited about a silicon Valley collapse.

code4tee 11y ago
Excited might not be the right word, but there's no question a lot of people are encouraged to see this happening. That's not schadenfreude but rather for the tech sector to have long term health and innovation built around solid businesses with real revenues and profits the silliness of the last few years needs to stop.
w1ntermute 11y ago
It will have a cleansing effect for our ecosystem, much as forest fires do for theirs. The arrogance and irrational exuberance that has become commonplace among founders and VCs will be curtailed, and rent & traffic may become somewhat manageable.
- kasey_junk 11y ago
  And lots of engineers will be out of work (or working for much less pay, in much more traditional organizations)...at least if the last bubble pop is any indication.
  - w1ntermute 11y ago
    Which is certainly unfortunate, but it has to happen sooner or later. The whole "STEM shortage" hysteria (see FWD.us[0]) is nothing more than a shameless attempt to drive down engineering wages by increasing enrollment in CS programs, pumping up H1B allocations, and wage fixing[1]. Tech execs and investors love to complain about having to pay six figure salaries to the engineers doing all the real work, all while carting home hundreds of millions themselves in just severance pay[2], despite running companies into the ground, often because of their inability to perform basic management tasks correctly[3,4,5]. 0: http://www.fwd.us/ http://www.fwd.us/ 1: https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/ https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valle... 2: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2015/12/04/marissa-mayer-severance-benefits/76781384/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2015/12/04/maris... 3: http://nypost.com/2016/01/18/marissa-mayers-job-safety-joke-doesnt-sit-well-with-workers/ http://nypost.com/2016/01/18/marissa-mayers-job-safety-joke-... 4: http://www.businessinsider.com/eric-jackson-slams-yahoo-for-polyvore-acquisition-2015-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/eric-jackson-slams-yahoo-for-... 5: https://www.atlantic.net/blog/how-elon-musk-ceo-of-telsa-motors-stole-my-car/ https://www.atlantic.net/blog/how-elon-musk-ceo-of-telsa-mot...
    - splintercell 11y ago
      Any productive activity is a sum of the 3 factors of production: Land/Natural Goods + Labor + Capital If you increase any one of these factors, you get more production (i.e. more prosperity). For instance, Capital: if Chinese/Russian billionaires decide to invest all their money in American companies in America, then it would result in huge economic growth. Similarly Natural Goods: If prices of oil fall drastically, or lots of natural goods (even land) are discovered, then again there will be increased production of goods (i.e. more prosperity). Finally, Labor: if labor prices fall drastically, or labor force is increased, again more production will happen. Prosperity will ensue. The first two makes sense to most people, but somehow the third point doesn't because most people are part of the labor force therefore emotions kick in. The simple logic you're demonstrating is a childish whining: > Tech execs and investors love to complain about having to pay six figure salaries to the engineers doing all the real work, all while carting home hundreds of millions themselves in just severance pay< The whole job of tech execs and investors is to increase production. Acquiring capital for cheap (lower interest rates) would do the job, acquiring land/natural goods for cheap (like moving office to a cheaper part of the town) would also do the job, and finally getting cheap labor would also do the same thing. Complaining against a businessman trying to find cheaper labor is like complaining against the QA for trying to find bugs in your code.
fsckin 11y ago
After SF collapses, housing prices will drop and the Phoenix will rise again.
- tgb29 11y ago
  Phoenix is still growing and the state of Arizona will benefit from the changes in California.
- mikeryan 11y ago
  That's not a consistent scenario with what happened last time the tech bubble burst. Believe it or not most folks in the Bay Area don't work for tech startups. It would take a combination of a bunch of market forces to drive housing prices down here.
enraged_camel 11y ago
You call it collapse, I call it normalization.
CPLX 11y ago
Bubbles are incredibly inefficient, they send huge amounts of very valuable resources (money, but also things like people, creativity, press attention) into situations where they are ultimately squandered. They are like wars, they can waste the promise of an entire generation, never to be recovered. Nobody wants to see a collapse for collapse's sake, but there is quite a bit of social good in avoiding or deflating an asset bubble, be it in residential mortgages or late stage technology companies.
- paulpauper 11y ago
  As if the government does a better job managing money, which is why the concept of 'exit' is appealing to some in Silicon Valley. New technologies emerge from bubbles. The only way to do away with the boom bust cycle is to do away with capitalism itself.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    You don't have to argue for government to notice that bubbles are inefficient and therefore not desirable.
- federico3 11y ago
  THIS
27182818284 11y ago
>To me, it seems like some people are looking forward and are excited about a silicon Valley collapse. There is absolutely this attitude present. I've heard it both in the Midwest and out west in San Francisco and Oakland both. I can even understand it to an extant, because although I am in the not-a-bubble camp, I am annoyed when I see media and others acting like "Uber for pizza" is a mind-blowing idea.
gmarx 11y ago
I am. Maybe rents will stop going up. Maybe the Harvard MBAs will take off their red hoodies and go work on Wall Street or maybe for old companies that make stuff in the Midwest