[Alex3917]

I think a lot of companies who raised seed funding prior to 2010 or 2012 did so at excessively low valuations, and then tried to make up for it later by raising at excessively high valuations once they hit. The 'bubble' over the last couple years that's driven up pre-seed valuations should actually make the current crop of startups more stable over the long run.

Also, the decaying state of physical infrastructure in the U.S. is only going to drive more people to spend time on the Internet, where network effects are only getting exponentially more powerful as new networks are getting built on top of existing networks. These days a social startup that's "only growing as fast as Facebook" might not even be able to successfully raise a seed round. There might be a cyclical downturn, but none of the underlying trends in society point to tech being a bad investment over the longterm.

[idlewords]

The fact that our roads are crappy is going to turn people into shut-ins?

[Alex3917]

Basically, yes. I think better examples though would be:

- A rapid increase in states requiring HS students to complete some of their classes online in order to save money.

- Folks being unable to get treatment for all sorts of health conditions and mental illnesses.

- The prison system not providing adequate job training or rehabilitation.

- The costs of college education increasing while the quality of that education decreases.

Are Internet startups the best way to solve all of these problems? Probably not. But in each of these cases startups are going to rake in the bulk of the money, if only because they're going to be the only game in town.

Thanks to complete gridlock at the federal level and general incompetence at the state level, sandhill road has effectively become the new congress. And like it or not, this probably isn't going to change anytime soon.

And as for your example with the roads, to quote @noUpside on Twitter the other day, "SF specializes in creating companies that are essentially 'New York as a Service' bc its infrastructure sucks." (https://twitter.com/noUpside/status/659094021151789056)

[spyspy]

This is some wild speculation.

[VLM]

"SF specializes in creating companies that are essentially 'New York as a Service' bc its infrastructure sucks."

I've also heard the "mom" variation. I've never heard "mom" equated with "New York" but it is insightful in its own strange way.

[eropple]

So they've figured out how to mometize new revenue streams, eh...

(I'll show myself out.)

[HillaryBriss]

Ok. Yes.

But when will San Francisco/San Jose/Palo Alto go back to being simple, boring cities with high real estate prices that are no longer at the center of the global software hurricane?