The Economist Debates: Tech Bubble: Rebuttals

Looks like a separate post of Steve Blank's rebuttal has already been linked

http://steveblank.com/2011/06/17/are-you-you-the-fool-at-the...

A couple notes - the "Dear Sir" isn't an element of the debate, but a standard for any commentary (letters to the editor, etc..) directed to the Economist.

It's interesting - I came in believing that we're in a bubble, but Ben has brought me around to believing that while there are anecdotal examples of froth behavior (Linked in IPO, Color) - the technology market, in general, is not in a Technology Bubble. Great, great debat.

In the first bubble, there was a lot of enthusiasm for digital strategies generally. There was also a lot more acquisition interest in tech start-ups by non-technology companies which saw the potential for disruption of their industries. So if a team managed to bootstrap a company that covered its costs and earned revenue they could easily engineer a sale or take investment and de-risk.

I don't think that is the case these days, when the reality is that most entrepreneurs are working inexpensively for themselves and headed for failure. A few are growing businesses organically and slowly displacing rather than being acquired by their competition. If the tech economy were even close to a bubble, entrepreneurs would be de-risking much sooner.

Horowitz's initial argument basically ended with "OK it's a bubble, but it didn't pay to think that way when the NetScape IPO took place" which is in exact agreement with Blank's stated position "we're entering the mania phase". So, I don't see a need for a rebuttal -- Horowitz effectively conceded straight out of the gate.

It's a bubble, but there's still time to make money from bigger fools.

I rant about this at greater length here: http://loewald.com/blog/?p=4238

The debate format feels like an anachronism but it certainly looks like prefixing every comment with "Dear Sir" increases their civility and thoughtfulness.

Maybe something for HN to try.

"This time it's different."