Heat Death: Venture Capital in the 1980s (2015)

Really interesting article.

I am not convinced that we are more like the 80s than the 90s in terms of the types of risks VCs are willing to take, but I do appreciate that sense of the cycles in investing. (dearth of investors -> high returns -> everyone pours in -> returns dry up -> everyone leaves -> dearth of investors)

This is due to 2 factors a) larger markets can better set price to value b) as markets grow value declines due to opportunists.

I think when this was written everything seemed pretty great. In 3 years it all looks like '90s to me, crossing his criticality into non-risky bets and slanting non-tech plays as some kind of tech-level margin plays (real estate, kitchens, delivery etc). There's a chance some of these non-tech plays turn out to be great monopolies (primordial Amazons) on a very extended time scale, but they are effectively using investor greed/incompetence to do so.

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8908463

This kind of broad historical article is worth thousands of pages of financial press.