[randall]

>The downdraft began in mid-August, when the S&P 500 plunged 11 percent in a week, due primarily to concerns about slowing growth in China. Even with public stocks regaining most of their losses, IPOs remained weak, with tech companies going public at the slowest rate since 2009, and most of those that hit the market failing to reward late-stage investors.

> High-profile consumer start-ups are feeling the pinch. Evernote and One Kings Lane are cutting staff, Rdio was acquired out of bankruptcy, Gilt Groupe is nearing a sale for a fraction of its peak valuation (according to The Wall Street Journal) and Dropbox shut down two products.

The place where cheap money flows is early and late stage. Rdio being acquired and Dropbox have unrelated problems. Rdio's inception / funding was unorthodox by sv standards and the Skype founders finally realized they probably weren't going to beat skype, so they cut their losses. Dropbox killed 2 products that it failed to successfully integrate.

This piece seems light on evidence. I'm not saying that the situation we've had over the last 3-5 years is not coming to an end, I just don't see this piece proving it any more than last year or the year before.

Folks have been calling "bubble" for years, and if interest rates rise it could be a spark to change things, but this piece doesn't add very much data to the conversation and instead relies on VC hearsay.