The author decided that it would be cool if there was a way to portray some irrational exuberance, and boom - here's your article. The main point is that back i

The author decided that it would be cool if there was a way to portray some irrational exuberance, and boom - here's your article. The main point is that back in the day finance apps struggled more than they should have and now they are having it too easy. That may or may not be true, but the selective case studies certainly make it hard to take every word at face value. Let's examine the 2009 case study - Simple struggled to raise money, whereas supposedly it should have been a walk in the park by today's standards. Nevermind that they shut down recently. And to illustrate today's standards, the author is bringing up Step, which was able to raise at whatever valuation it wanted once it hit the list of top downloaded finance apps. So first of all - Simple and Step are not an apples to apples comparison, because Simple was not a top downloaded finance app in 2009. And then let's address the point of Step's valuation - someone cold emailing you to take their money at whatever valuation is in reality just trying to get a meeting. If you respond with a ridiculous figure, you won't hear back from them again. Sure, they are clearly not valuation sensitive, but also not necessarily total idiots. It actually sounds more like a brilliant move to me - if you were allowed to invest $5m in each app that hit the list of top downloaded finance apps, would you achieve a good IRR? Remember, all it takes is one unicorn to return an entire fund. Would it be really that hard to dig into some unit economics of venture funds and try to provide some context for what's happening in the market rather than just ride the wave of "check it out, another investor doing crazy shit!"?