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Comment by maigret | Hacker News Reader

This may be a private tech bubble though. To me it don't seems like tech stocks are too inflated compared to the revenues we can see. Facebook may be overvalued, the Skype buy was very expensive, VCs invest like crazy, but all of that is private investment. Does anyone here see a risk for the stocks also?

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Where do you think all the VC and angel money is coming from? Banks and pension funds and investment firms are almost certainly funneling money into these things, we just don't get to see it because it's being done on the private market.

The very thing that makes everyone comfortable with this bubble (that it's mainly "private" capital) is the scariest part. Last time, you could mostly tell when grandma's retirement fund was betting the bank on social networks for dogs. This time, it's all on the down-low.

It's really more about the amount of leverage and the total volume of money at stake. I haven't seen much evidence of either, although that doesn't really mean anything. But let's take Facebook as an example. It really seems like the "valuation" is due to the tiny volumes of shares being traded.

In general it seems like VCs are throwing 10s of millions around fairly recklessly. 10 million is a lot for most of us, but it's nothing in terms of the US economy. If/when it starts turning into billions instead of millions we could see trouble

Yes, you are right. Good insight, thanks. On the same line, my comment that Skype was a private investment also isn't true, because MSFT is a public company.

Skype buy was very expensive...but all of that is private investment

meh?

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