After reading [0] today, I feel happy that someone decided to write this up.
Over the last year, I've seen a dozen colleagues who have created startups just to fleece money from VCs (if you can call them that) who have lots of money and no clue about tech in general (the ones who have seen shows like Silicon Valley, movies like The Social Network and Uber's evaluation and want to make a quick buck this time around).
I don't believe there's a bubble, but if this continues, we'll soon have one real quick.
I know 2 colleagues starting a local startup together just to build their career. They both hate coding. One is now a software architect and the other is an engineer manager. You see: start a company --> practice hiring and managing engineers --> shut down the company --> find jobs at big companies with management skills($$$).
I won't lie but this used to happen a lot at my university. Software Engineers would not find summer jobs (because they don't have experience - the usual chicken & egg problem).
So they'd create new startups every summer (or just one and keep progressing) and then work at one of the big 4 after graduation.
I'm not sure it fools anyone :) Several years ago it was notable to see 'cofounder' on a resume, now I just assume they did a hackathon for a weekend and then kept the site up.
If they managed to get some paying customers though - hey that's real work / real experience! (assuming it wasnt their mom)
There's massive inflation in the valley. Too much dumb money chasing too many dumb ideas. Investors need to start stepping outside of the valley. If not funding to sociopaths will only increase.
In all honesty, you can learn a ton of things in 1 year doing a startup that you'd learn in 20 years working for a big company...even if it fails. Marketing, selling, talking to customers, coding, etc. In most big companies you don't get even close to the customer. A lot of investors started the whole idea of funding useless ideas, then now complain that everything is useless, yet everyone applauds.
Over the last year, I've seen a dozen colleagues who have created startups just to fleece money from VCs (if you can call them that) who have lots of money and no clue about tech in general (the ones who have seen shows like Silicon Valley, movies like The Social Network and Uber's evaluation and want to make a quick buck this time around).
I don't believe there's a bubble, but if this continues, we'll soon have one real quick.
[0] - https://www.saastr.com/22-reasons-i-wont-fund-you/