sorry to be off topic here, but these seem like crazy times.
Unfortunately, this time around the successes of the previous rounds actually made things worse, because they succeeded too much. VC funding is now, intentionally, a casino. The RoI you can get from growing a winner fast enough to dominate some new market so outclasses what you can earn back from helping a sensible startup grow at a reasonable level that most VCs concentrate their funding to match. It's all about disrupting and breakthroughs and growing fast. This ends up bringing a lot of "unicorns" into existence even if only a few of them are ultimately viable. It also leaves a lot of smaller, more sensible startup ideas in the dust. Silicon Valley is all about stuff that's "cool", not stuff that's challenging or valuable. Sadly, even this round of the bubble bursting is unlikely to change that.
These are old, old maxims...
I've often wondered what percentage of current Internet "businesses" offer consumers a product they could not live without...?
At the same time, investors have figured out innumerable ways to get paid out of companies that are obviously not going to make it and won't ever hit a traditional liquidity event. They've gamed the system to an enormous degree but they also pump so much money into it that it's hard to stand up to them.
I think there's a culture of expecting reasonable businesses to seek unreasonable goals.
Until the valley can move from "always dream big" to "well sometimes, just plan sensibly", it will be perpetually unstable.
I remember a strip mall across from a corporate office park. Every couple months, a new .com would go in and another would go out of business, but in the strip mall the same places had been there for 20 years. The web isn't going anywhere, there's nothing wrong with providing for the long term.
It's very likely that only so many "home runs" can be hit...that doesn't mean you can't do very well for yourself by focussing on a niche need, a good product, and excellent service...
A winning business model since mankind first began trading and bartering...
You make a very, very good point...
Presumably someone might think we are in a bubble and be right, but not have enough information to know when the market will correct or to what degree.