Lyft, Uber , Airbnb and Pinterest are not real startups . it's only a matter of time the value of these platforms will deflate when the wealth has moved from masses to few smart people .
1
I suppose the point of this article is to highlight the "toiling" VCs in the background who will soon get a huge payday, but this article again highlights the worrying future of the Bay Area. The cost of living is already nuts, obviously a flood of new rich(er) folks isn't going to help.
1
The title of this article and that peacock graphic are hysterical.
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Bragging when you're on top is an unattractive look, agreed, (and one that attracts schadenfreude), but how is this from any other business touting victories or market success?
3
Going public is not ideal for most companies in the long run. They are going to have to prove themselves every 90 days in perpetuity. They will be tempted to navigate their hour to hour lives to meet Wall Street expectations on earnings. They will be tempted to put their shareholders before employees and customers. The pressure to grow will be intense. While the VCs make out with massive profits taxed at 15% long term capital gains rates, the employees of these companies will pay the real cost in the long run. Earnings Growth. Earnings Growth. Earnings Growth please!!
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@Tim Bachmann - 'Going public' is how these folk get the big money in their hand straight away.
After that they don't need to care - Money already in the bank !
1
I get it. Rich VCs are going to be even richer. In the meantime, our democracy is in shambles, income inequality is greater than anytime since the gilded age of robber barons, and republicans are still trying to take health care away from the poor and middle class. Enjoy your tax cuts, fourth house or 10th car. It's good to be the king.
29
VC firms have run to public relations firms in the past, but not for good reasons. Do a search on Steve Jurvetson, DFJ and “sex parties.”
I was at university with some of the Silicon Valley VC hotshots. I’ve spent time around them. They live in their own, small world, surrounded most of the time by people who have as much money as they do. It’s alarming that VCs have the level of influence they do. Breathing that rarified air and thinking themselves of the world, they tweak our 401ks without a thought for the small folk.
8
I recommend that everyone interested in VCs, finance, and the history of tech read the book "eBoys: The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work."
It's writer was embedded with the VCs who funded eBay, and writes about them with fawning admiration and sycophancy. It all becomes hysterically funny when you realize that it was written in 1999, and that the author's enthusiasm and hero-worship extends to their newest venture: Webvan.
1
VCs here already spend too much time patting themselves on the back and making sure everyone here knows who and how (self-) important they are. If they'd only look up from their phones during their 20 Uber rides a day (mostly to the rock climbing gym and back) long enough to look around, they'd see some pretty stark opportunities to put all that money to work. Maybe not for instant ROIs, or even in 5 years, but by improving the quality of life for more people, who can then get better jobs and afford to live and thrive — and use more of their products & services — in San Francisco. Not even close to socialism, but it would solve so many more challenging problems than a free ride.
17
@MCV207 - exactly. the lauded philanthropy of the industrialists in the UK during and after the Industrial Revoluation that were later taken up by the State - for example factory housing with sanitary considerations, Lever and Port Sunlight etc, became council housing, Octavia Hill and her Peabody became social housing, Octavia Hill again became the National Trust, a variety of industrialists decided that free education for children made them better workers, post WW1 when they analysed the abysmal physical quality of conscripts, the state created the welfare state (eventually and in the teeth of the Tory party).
What surprises me these days is that these modern industrialists, the venture capitalists and others, they aren't thinking the same way, or at least they maybe do, but not until they have SO much money it's more than obscene.
Maybe it's because these modern industrialists don't need actual poor people working for them, only consuming their goods to make return on investment, and humans often don't need to be healthy to do that.
But I absolutely agree iwth you, and also, it ought to start a LOT sooner than when the ROI becomes obscene for one person (even compared to average incomes/ standards of living in the West never mind the majority world)
3
@MCV207 - last I read about venture capitalists said they were typically highly demanding of any ventures they offered capital for - demanding quick payback and onerous terms and conditions on the startups.
looks a bit like gambling - 'I turned $12 Million into $9 BILLION !!!' - a 750 times return
guess they are not advertising all the ones that lost money
2