The New Tech Bubble

[John Bailey]

Very relevant article. Not sure I collude with its overall argument,
but it definitely gives good background to BE.

On Fri, Sep 27, 2013 at 10:02 PM, Robin Landseadel
<robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
> I hope links work at this antediluvian website. This article from Salon has
> multiple resonances with BE:
>
> "Is it time to get nervous? On Sept. 20, a pair of Silicon Valley start-ups
> enjoyed spectacular “pops” on their initial public offerings. Shares in
> Rocket Fuel, an advertising technology firm, rose 94 percent, while shares
> in FireEye, an Internet security company, shot up 80 percent. Uh-oh! A
> headline in the San Jose Mercury News kicked off the hand-wringing:
> “Jaw-dropping stock debuts by FireEye, Rocket Fuel are already raising
> questions about a new tech bubble.”
>
> There’s a good reason for jitters: If there’s one thing the San Francisco
> Bay Area fears more than a big earthquake, it’s the sound of a tech bubble
> bursting. Economic devastation is never fun.
>
> And it certainly feels bubbly, to anyone who remembers what it was like the
> last time it got crazy. Traffic is getting worse, again. New gourmet
> restaurants, fancy beer gardens and high-end boutiques are proliferating.
> Unemployment has plummeted. Gentrification is in high gear. Rents are
> absurd. Enormous amounts of money, wielded with douchebag arrogance, are
> sloshing around town. Hell, there’s even talk that Kozmo.com, the same-day
> dot-com-boom delivery service that burned through $230 million without ever
> even making it to IPO day, is coming back.
>
> The difference between earthquakes and tech bubbles is that the former
> arrives without warning while the latter comes accompanied by sirens and a
> motorcade that you can hear in the distance for years in advance. When it
> comes to tech bubbles, the Bay Area is always on typhoon alert. But the
> craziest thing about the current craziness is that the closer you look, the
> fewer reasons there seem to be to load up on survival gear and run for the
> hills. . ."
>
>
>
> http://www.salon.com/2013/09/27/why_we_hate_the_new_tech_boom/-
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l