Hmm. The silly and zany stuff was profitable then as well. Sure, not all of it (but nor is all of it today). The profit "on the silly stuff" then came mostly fr

Hmm. The silly and zany stuff was profitable then as well. Sure, not all of it (but nor is all of it today). The profit "on the silly stuff" then came mostly from speculative investment, buyouts and advertisers - not from direct consumer sales. I'm not sure how different that is from today. I'm not on the latest numbers; maybe you're better informed. Is the revenue being generated by today's startups more often and in larger quantities from direct consumer sales? I found what you said about IPOs interesting. Why is it that you think going public (before or after being profitable) is an indicator of a bubble? It seems to me to be a minor detail. From what I can tell (there is no universally accepted definition of a bubble) all that is needed for a bubble is for speculation (trade-value) to outgrow revenue (use-value) at the same time speculation appears to increase the demand for, lack of supply of, or actual underlying value of a business/commodity/whathaveyou. Upon entering a feedback loop of increased speculative investment because of rapidly inflating possible returns (which do pay out up until the bubble bursts) and increased returns because of rapid inflation in the amount of venture capital, the numbers get bigger on their own without a need for change in underlying value. That is until investors withdraw, causing capital and valuations to plummet, and more investors to withdraw, ad nauseum. The important thing here is that the source of investment (venture/speculative) capital need not come from any particular source, be it public option or nay. It's possible in principle to have a bubble based on Venture Capital and private money, but its also true in practice that these VC firms are often traded publicly themselves and promise returns based on their investments. The second paragraph and last sentence are fascinating, but isn't the hypothesis here that the bubble hasn't burst yet?