Let’s Hope For ‘Silicon Sustainability’ This Time
Posted on April 19, 2011
Filed Under Business, Technology | Leave a Comment
Gee, it must be tough being an angel investor in Silicon Valley, especially when things get rolling out there, as they are now.
You’re not assured that your money is appreciated. You might even be turned away, or have to cope with a “class system,” reports Monica Langley in The Wall Street Journal. The bigger guys, billionaires, may be shutting out smaller ones, mere millionaires.
The really good news is that this high tech boom in the West may be more sustainable than the one ended in 2000, when a bubble broke, leaving a lot of investors in the same state. “There are a bunch of rich people and firms subsidizing tech entrepreneurs, but this time the entrepreneurs are better,” The Journal quotes David Lee, a managing partner of SV Angel as saying. “These companies have millions of engaged users or actual profits. It’s not just sloppy money coming to the table.”
Twitter has a $3.7 billion valuation, but Facebook, with more than 500 million users, is valued by Wall Street at $50 billion, and actually has been getting more visits than Google. Poor Google. Groupon, the daily discounts site, not long ago turned down a $6 billion offer from Google, reporedly over anti-trust concerns, and now Google is launching Google Offers to compete with Groupon. (Get the feeling we’re expected to spend most of our time shopping on the Web?)
The thing about all that money flowing West is, couldn’t there be a way to spread it more evenly around the country, fostering innovation everywhere? Yet the capital requires support communities, or rather, is drawn to them. And Silicon Valley has a virtually unrivaled infrastructure for innovation. With sunshine all year, and San Francisco just down the road, there’s energy to power all sorts of enterprises.
Let’s hope that this time it continues to be focused on sustainability, not silicon dreams. – Doug Bedell
Comments
Leave a Comment
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
Recently
- Presentations With Forethought
- Technical Writing’s Lineage – Surely It’s Deeper than Digital
- At the Holidays, Twitting Amazon
- Successful Cookie Baking – From Mom, an Acknowledged Expert
- Slides for a Tech Writer’s Craft
- Digital or Not, Be Clear
- Being Watchful About Digital Designs…
- When Proposals Don’t Click, Keep Making Them Anyway
- Like a Good Gardener, Help an Enterprise Keep Itself Current
- We’re Leaders All, And Need to Think That Way
Categories
Archives
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
Blogroll