Boom or bubble?
Are we in a boom or setting ourselves up for failure again?
Boom proponent, Wired, The New Boom:
Be careful what you wish for, all of you with the “Please, God, just one more bubble!” bumper stickers. It’s getting wild again in Silicon Valley. In recent months, the breathtaking ascent of Google has lit a fire under its competitors, which include practically everyone in the online world. The result is all too familiar: seven-figure recruiting packages, snarled traffic on Highway 101, and a general sense that the boom is back. A boom perhaps, but not (phew!) a bubble.
(Seven figure recruiting packages!? I’d definitely relocate to the valley for one of those.)
Fall proponent, William Grosso, Yeah, But Not Really.:
When I look at the valley, I see a lot of innovation. But it’s surface innovation instead of deep innovation. To dramatically overstate the case: we’re focusing on building better event calendars and better blog aggregators. And on bringing the same functionality, slightly tailored, to all the nooks and crannies of the long tail.
One of William’s last paragraphs really resonates with me:
Microsoft scares me. When I look at what’s in .NET, and I look at what’s going on in Vista, and I look at the overall platform strategy that Microsoft is embarked upon, I see three things: long-term planning, coordinated action, and fundamental innovation.
While to some degree we are, and have to be, chasing the latest Web 2.0 fads, we’re certainly not betting the company on them. Instead we’re focused on long-term, big bets. Oddly enough, I’d rather invest my money in a company like Microsoft, but my time in my fad :).
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