Facebook Fallout, Alarmism, and You

Steve Icon

Yeah, you probably saw that Paul Graham of Y Combinator is predicting dismal times for startups.  That is, until you read the content, and realize he’s simply noting that Facebook’s IPO decline could be bad for some startups and mean they have to focus differently.

Of course his rather rational statements (based indeed, on limited knowledge) are making headlines without being actually, well, discussed.

So first of all, I’d say it’s not a question of people being leery of startups, but more being more cautious with their VC.  Fine.  They should be and have been.  This is a given and was probably going to happen anyway – I’d rather it happen after an IPO drop then some huge, insane, bubble.

Secondly, yes, startups shouldn’t do stupid stuff with money.  That’s a really good thing to bring up, and it’s been said for about 13 years.  Many have listened.

No, the Facebook IPO is not the doom of Silicon Valley, or your career, or anything else.  Graham is making the point that caution is a watchword.  That’s it.

Me, I say “good.”

- Steven Savage

 

  • http://www.genjipress.com/ Serdar (GenjiPress)

    What I’d like to see is some startup money thrown at projects that have genuine value and are not just more ways for us to show each other stupid cat videos. But figuring out what those things are is turning out to be extremely tough.

    There’s an old story about the invention of the laser: when it was originally invented, it was calibrated in Gillettes. A one-Gillette laser could punch through a single razor blade in one second; a two-Gillette laser could punch through two in one second; and so on. The unstated implication was that they were so at sea about what they had invented that they couldn’t think of anything to do with it except blow holes in razor blades.

    I think we have something of the same problem right now with the digital culture we’ve developed. We have no idea what to do with it except reinvent the same toys over and over again, and make them ever-gaudier and progressively less useful (and more self-serving) with each successive invention.

    • Steven Savage

      Actually your criticisms mirror ones in the valley right now – everything looks the same.

      However I’ve found VC to be MOSTLY cautious anyway in the last few years, and there’s some smart stuff brewing.  The problem I think is that there’s a lot of good things but they don’t get the PR buzz, so people may not invest, or if they do no one notices.

      • http://www.genjipress.com/ Serdar (GenjiPress)

        The most really striking and disruptive stuff often goes unnoticed, simply because most people have no idea what the real implications of the thing in question are. They just plain can’t get their mind around it.

        As weird as this sounds, that’s part of why I think something like 3D printing is actually not going to be that disruptive, because the possibilities for what it can do are being very quickly subsumed into existing things. Then again, that may just be a reflection of how it’s getting harder to create something for which there is no existing container. Does that say something about our ability to conceive something truly new, or just that we’re having an easier time of figuring out what something is “for”? Maybe it’s a little naïve of me to assume that a truly new thing will be that much more baffling and unclassifiable, but from what I see it’s a pretty good index to work with.