3 ms·
Peak California is real and this is a quite good summary of it. One redeeming aspect not well understood, though, is the role of capital. We're temporarily in
by malchow 8y ago
Peak California is real and this is a quite good summary of it.
One redeeming aspect not well understood, though, is the role of capital. We're temporarily in an odd age of overabundance in venture capital (overabundance relative to investable ideas and people) but in general, and pretty much at all times except for 1997 to 2000 and 2014 to 2018, the people willing and able intelligently to invest in $0 revenue / 0 progress companies with wild ideas have tended to be in just one place.
Nothing about this demands that the companies stay in California. But it means that they'll probably keep coming here to find capital being allocated by risk-loving Ph D-holders.
I have only been in the Valley for 10 years, but even I remember, in 2009, how fast the tourist capital vanished. And some pretty cool companies were founded in 2009.
When the next cyclical downturn arrives, the same determined VCs are still going to be in the same MPK and SF offices, plugging away on new ideas, while oil kingdoms and plutocrats are going to be off cleaning money in some other, hotter corner of the globe.