Anecdotal, personal, and completely my opinion, but my parent's entire life savings is $750,000. That's about how much Mike Markkula invested in early Apple ($2

Anecdotal, personal, and completely my opinion, but my parent's entire life savings is $750,000. That's about how much Mike Markkula invested in early Apple ($250,000 in 1977 dollars adjusted for inflation). I like this figure because it represents a serious amount of money - you could retire off of it, if you're frugal. So why take the risk of investing such a large sum in a startup? I presume that the objective of investors (who have much more money that $750K) is to either to a) make money or b) make money and bring a new technology/innovation to market. In a bubble I see more of the former (focus on money) without the innovation piece. How many car sharing (Uber/Lyft/Sidecar), food-delivery (GrubHub/OrderAhead/DoorDash), and credit card alternatives (Venmo/Coin/Stratos) do we really need? Would the founders of such companies put their retirement savings into starting these companies? Maybe, maybe not. Innovation is key to keeping a bubble at bay. Y combinator has quite a few companies where the goal is to make money through innovation. These are ventures dedicated to biomedical research (DNA sequencing/Gene Mapping), novel algorithm development (AI/Machine Learning), improving social welfare (Water Filtration/Education), etc. I'd be happy to see a world full of these, and I wouldn't call it a bubble. It would be people pursuing ideas that could solve real problems in the world. Ideas that are worth investing your (and therefore an investor's) money. I believe that innovative companies keep a bubble at bay precisely because they are less likely to succeed. Investors must faithfully evaluate innovative companies to see if their technology is feasible and if the market is ready.