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It seems odd to me that people are seriously talking about a bubble coming as if it's never been talked about before. It seems to be once a month that there's a

It seems odd to me that people are seriously talking about a bubble coming as if it's never been talked about before. It seems to be once a month that there's another article on TechCrunch decrying Silicon Valley as a bubble after stumbling upon the party of some douchebag who watched The Social Network and decided to snort cocaine in Palo Alto. But I quote Peter Thiel's "Party like it's 1999" lecture: http://blakemasters.com/post/20582845717/peter-thiels-cs183-startup-class-2-notes-essay http://blakemasters.com/post/20582845717/peter-thiels-cs183-... "Bubbles arise when there is (1) widespread, intense belief that’s (2) not true. But people don’t really believe in anything in our society anymore. You can’t have a bubble absent widespread, intense belief. The incredible narrative about a tech bubble comes from people who are looking for a bubble. That’s more overreaction to the pain of the ‘90s than it is good analysis." In other words, if the majority of people believe there is a bubble, there is not, by definition, a bubble. Valuations for seed-rounds are frothy because there are a lot of investors competing and looking for astronomical returns, but Series A is still hard to come by. Just a couple days ago there was an article on HN about "avoiding the Series A crunch," and today we have a "what to do in the bubble" article. If anything is widespread, it's good old fashioned paranoia.

berntb 13y ago
>>If anything is widespread, it's good old fashioned paranoia. Well, you will see this as paranoia then: There were lots of people arguing like you that there were no bubble -- just until it burst. For instance, this "everyone learn to code to earn money" thing imho indicates that it is highly likely that the programming profession will burst in a short while. Again. (The reason there is a lack of software people now is at least partly because everyone stopped studying computer science after the IT death.) Edit: jonnathanson (and others) answers you better than me https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6440516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6440516
- runawaybottle 13y ago
  This is the part that I've been concerned about as well, "everyone learn to code". The truth of the matter is if you're about to head into college, it's very difficult to see any hope of getting a job in all but a few industries. Software is one of the bright spots in the economy right now, so we will absolutely see a huge influx of programmers in the coming years. I don't know how this will impact the current crop of developers going forward, but I do hope the industry gets bigger with things like more hardware to develop for (Google glass, car software like the dashboard in the model s, 3d printing, etc). If it doesn't, then the tides will definitely turn as I just don't think we need that many web/app developers.
wwweston 13y ago
> people don’t really believe in anything in our society anymore Should I believe that? (And is this another way of say "This time is different"?) Is it actually possible for people not to believe anything, in our society or any society? > In other words, if the majority of people believe there is a bubble, there is not, by definition, a bubble. Does this go beyond first-order consequences? Is it also true that the more people utilize the rationale to convince themselves that talk of/paranoia regarding a bubble is a sign of no bubble, the more likely there can be a bubble? Also, there seems to be the assumption that when people realize there's a bubble, they'll immediately engage in attenuating behavior. I think there's evidence to the contrary -- that as long as people can see a way to continue to profit from it (say, a critical mass of people believing everyone else is the greater fool), a bubble can continue while being widely acknowledged.
- jonnathanson 13y ago
  "Is it actually possible for people not to believe anything, in our society or any society?" "We are nihilists, Lebowski! We believe in nothing!" Sorry, couldn't resist. :) With all due respect to Peter Thiel, who is much smarter and more successful than I am, I'm really baffled by the statement that "people in our society don't really believe in anything anymore." And I am especially baffled by the implication that this putative, ubiquitous nihilo-cynicism -- even if we accept it to be true, which I don't -- necessarily precludes the formation of bubbles. Did people not believe in anything back in the mid-2000s housing bubble? It seems as if they believed in housing, for one thing. The belief was "widespread and intense" enough to cause a serious freakin' problem. I'm going to give a guy like Peter Thiel the benefit of the doubt and assume that I'm missing a lot for lack of context. But that quote, at least out of its original context and so presented, is really strange.
  - wwweston 13y ago
    > "We are nihilists, Lebowski! We believe in nothing!" :) > With all due respect to Peter Thiel, who is much smarter and more successful than I am Remember, these two things sometimes go together. Another guy who's more successful than many of us said “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.” > I'm going to give a guy like Peter Thiel the benefit of the doubt and assume that I'm missing a lot for lack of context I'm a little less generous; my guess is that what Thiel says is very smart indeed in the context of boosting certain business interests and/or political philosophies.
Vivtek 13y ago
So if anything, there's a metabubble? A widespread, intense belief that there may or may not be a bubble?

berntb 13y ago

>>If anything is widespread, it's good old fashioned paranoia. Well, you will see this as paranoia then: There were lots of people arguing like you that there were no bubble -- just until it burst. For instance, this "everyone learn to code to earn money" thing imho indicates that it is highly likely that the programming profession will burst in a short while. Again. (The reason there is a lack of software people now is at least partly because everyone stopped studying computer science after the IT death.) Edit: jonnathanson (and others) answers you better than me https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6440516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6440516

runawaybottle 13y ago
This is the part that I've been concerned about as well, "everyone learn to code". The truth of the matter is if you're about to head into college, it's very difficult to see any hope of getting a job in all but a few industries. Software is one of the bright spots in the economy right now, so we will absolutely see a huge influx of programmers in the coming years. I don't know how this will impact the current crop of developers going forward, but I do hope the industry gets bigger with things like more hardware to develop for (Google glass, car software like the dashboard in the model s, 3d printing, etc). If it doesn't, then the tides will definitely turn as I just don't think we need that many web/app developers.

wwweston 13y ago

> people don’t really believe in anything in our society anymore Should I believe that? (And is this another way of say "This time is different"?) Is it actually possible for people not to believe anything, in our society or any society? > In other words, if the majority of people believe there is a bubble, there is not, by definition, a bubble. Does this go beyond first-order consequences? Is it also true that the more people utilize the rationale to convince themselves that talk of/paranoia regarding a bubble is a sign of no bubble, the more likely there can be a bubble? Also, there seems to be the assumption that when people realize there's a bubble, they'll immediately engage in attenuating behavior. I think there's evidence to the contrary -- that as long as people can see a way to continue to profit from it (say, a critical mass of people believing everyone else is the greater fool), a bubble can continue while being widely acknowledged.

jonnathanson 13y ago
"Is it actually possible for people not to believe anything, in our society or any society?" "We are nihilists, Lebowski! We believe in nothing!" Sorry, couldn't resist. :) With all due respect to Peter Thiel, who is much smarter and more successful than I am, I'm really baffled by the statement that "people in our society don't really believe in anything anymore." And I am especially baffled by the implication that this putative, ubiquitous nihilo-cynicism -- even if we accept it to be true, which I don't -- necessarily precludes the formation of bubbles. Did people not believe in anything back in the mid-2000s housing bubble? It seems as if they believed in housing, for one thing. The belief was "widespread and intense" enough to cause a serious freakin' problem. I'm going to give a guy like Peter Thiel the benefit of the doubt and assume that I'm missing a lot for lack of context. But that quote, at least out of its original context and so presented, is really strange.
- wwweston 13y ago
  > "We are nihilists, Lebowski! We believe in nothing!" :) > With all due respect to Peter Thiel, who is much smarter and more successful than I am Remember, these two things sometimes go together. Another guy who's more successful than many of us said “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.” > I'm going to give a guy like Peter Thiel the benefit of the doubt and assume that I'm missing a lot for lack of context I'm a little less generous; my guess is that what Thiel says is very smart indeed in the context of boosting certain business interests and/or political philosophies.

Vivtek 13y ago

So if anything, there's a metabubble? A widespread, intense belief that there may or may not be a bubble?