4 ms·

If journalists keep writing articles about tech bubbles every few months, someone is bound to be correct. Looks like this "trend" started up again in 2013. ht

by tarr11 10y ago

If journalists keep writing articles about tech bubbles every few months, someone is bound to be correct. Looks like this "trend" started up again in 2013. https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=tech%20bubble https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=tech%20bubble

api 10y ago
I lived through 2001. This is not a bubble. As exhibit one I point out that everyone has been calling bubble since 2012. Real bubbles have more rah rah and less skepticism and more crazy. I do see a slowdown but this is nothing like dot.com. Seems like a normal correction and is not really separate from the rest of the economy being uncertain. Nothing tech specific. Bubble is an overused term. An inflated market is not a bubble, and a correction is not a bubble bursting. Markets go up and down all the time.
- talmand 10y ago
  An inflated market can be called a bubble, it just depends on how inflated it is and how people interpret that. Just because something is a bubble doesn't mean it's destined to burst. What we're seeing now could be considered a cool-down that would prevent a burst. There's nothing overly negative calling something a bubble when it does appear to be a bubble.
- roymurdock 10y ago
  It is not a bubble in that market caps are not "popping" - disappearing instantly, overnight, leaving shares worthless and dissolving fortunes. The current tech market is more like a punctured soccer ball, slowly leaking air. Regular people won't see this as a crash in their etrade portfolios; rather, they will notice a long, slow decline in the value of their pension/retirement funds.
  - abritinthebay 10y ago
    So... what you're saying is that it's a standard part of the normal cycle where things grow for a while, plateau or shrink a bit, then grow again? i.e. Not A Bubble.
    - roymurdock 10y ago
      Yeah, it's not a violent growth/crash cycle that people usually refer to as the outcome of a "bubble" (1929, 1987, 2001). I.E. the velocity is different. Right now it looks like a gentler reversion to the mean in GDP growth from the peak of this 6-year business cycle, which was much less pronounced than previous business cycle peaks. But who knows - the failure of a large firm that was generally thought to be solvent could set off another crash.
      - abritinthebay 10y ago
        It could, but if anything was going to do that then Yahoo would be the best candidate and I don't see panic over that situation.
  - rhino369 10y ago
    Part of it is that regular people don't have a ton of exposure to this alleged bubbled. They don't have start up equity. Last time around the bubble caused the stock market as a whole to become overvalued. This time it's limited to mostly private companies. Someone invested in a mutual funds or index funds will have pretty little exposure. Sure Apple, Google, Twitter, and Facebook might lose some value, but those aren't a huge portion of a diversified portfolio. Even the first web bubble only had modest real impact on the general economy. It put the country into a shallow recession for a few quarters but that was it.
- cleaver 10y ago
  Same here. I'd have friends in the investment industry ask me about some new IPO or another. "I can't tell you what these guys do." Still, they'd pour money into them. Even worse was pouring money into things like Nortel after the crash was well under way. People just chased it to the bottom. Edit: I thought I'd add that even in a bloodbath like 2001, not everything tanked. The (tiny) company I was with continued to grow in revenue. We weren't doing anything glamourous, just focusing on business value. No IPOs, although some folks were trying to push us that way in the late 90's.
- shams93 10y ago
  Compared to 2001 this is a correction not a bubble. I also survived that and not only did you lose money it took 10 years to pay off the bad tax debt from failing to sell it was like a double whammy, lose your money while also gaining a huge stock options tax bill.
- jeanduluoz 10y ago
  Not all bubbles are the same. Credit is free and money is inefficiently allocated. Just because we are not seeing price inflation, that does not mean that all is well. The global economy has been unravelling for the past year as central banks push assets into equities which would not "deserve" the investment without a manipulated yield curve.
mmanfrin 10y ago
It's a meta bubble.
pashabitz 10y ago
And with "CS major" superimposed: https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=tech%20bubble%2C%20cs%20major&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT%2B7 https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=tech%20bubble%2C%20c... I don't know what I'm saying I'm just saying it with data.

by tarr11 10y ago

api 10y ago

I lived through 2001. This is not a bubble. As exhibit one I point out that everyone has been calling bubble since 2012. Real bubbles have more rah rah and less skepticism and more crazy. I do see a slowdown but this is nothing like dot.com. Seems like a normal correction and is not really separate from the rest of the economy being uncertain. Nothing tech specific. Bubble is an overused term. An inflated market is not a bubble, and a correction is not a bubble bursting. Markets go up and down all the time.

talmand 10y ago
An inflated market can be called a bubble, it just depends on how inflated it is and how people interpret that. Just because something is a bubble doesn't mean it's destined to burst. What we're seeing now could be considered a cool-down that would prevent a burst. There's nothing overly negative calling something a bubble when it does appear to be a bubble.
roymurdock 10y ago
It is not a bubble in that market caps are not "popping" - disappearing instantly, overnight, leaving shares worthless and dissolving fortunes. The current tech market is more like a punctured soccer ball, slowly leaking air. Regular people won't see this as a crash in their etrade portfolios; rather, they will notice a long, slow decline in the value of their pension/retirement funds.
- abritinthebay 10y ago
  So... what you're saying is that it's a standard part of the normal cycle where things grow for a while, plateau or shrink a bit, then grow again? i.e. Not A Bubble.
  - roymurdock 10y ago
    Yeah, it's not a violent growth/crash cycle that people usually refer to as the outcome of a "bubble" (1929, 1987, 2001). I.E. the velocity is different. Right now it looks like a gentler reversion to the mean in GDP growth from the peak of this 6-year business cycle, which was much less pronounced than previous business cycle peaks. But who knows - the failure of a large firm that was generally thought to be solvent could set off another crash.
    - abritinthebay 10y ago
      It could, but if anything was going to do that then Yahoo would be the best candidate and I don't see panic over that situation.
- rhino369 10y ago
  Part of it is that regular people don't have a ton of exposure to this alleged bubbled. They don't have start up equity. Last time around the bubble caused the stock market as a whole to become overvalued. This time it's limited to mostly private companies. Someone invested in a mutual funds or index funds will have pretty little exposure. Sure Apple, Google, Twitter, and Facebook might lose some value, but those aren't a huge portion of a diversified portfolio. Even the first web bubble only had modest real impact on the general economy. It put the country into a shallow recession for a few quarters but that was it.
cleaver 10y ago
Same here. I'd have friends in the investment industry ask me about some new IPO or another. "I can't tell you what these guys do." Still, they'd pour money into them. Even worse was pouring money into things like Nortel after the crash was well under way. People just chased it to the bottom. Edit: I thought I'd add that even in a bloodbath like 2001, not everything tanked. The (tiny) company I was with continued to grow in revenue. We weren't doing anything glamourous, just focusing on business value. No IPOs, although some folks were trying to push us that way in the late 90's.
shams93 10y ago
Compared to 2001 this is a correction not a bubble. I also survived that and not only did you lose money it took 10 years to pay off the bad tax debt from failing to sell it was like a double whammy, lose your money while also gaining a huge stock options tax bill.
jeanduluoz 10y ago
Not all bubbles are the same. Credit is free and money is inefficiently allocated. Just because we are not seeing price inflation, that does not mean that all is well. The global economy has been unravelling for the past year as central banks push assets into equities which would not "deserve" the investment without a manipulated yield curve.

mmanfrin 10y ago

It's a meta bubble.

pashabitz 10y ago

And with "CS major" superimposed: https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=tech%20bubble%2C%20cs%20major&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT%2B7 https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=tech%20bubble%2C%20c... I don't know what I'm saying I'm just saying it with data.