<story><title>The great Silicon Valley shake-out</title><url>https://www.economist.com/business/2022/06/28/the-great-silicon-valley-shake-out</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Xcelerate</author><text>&amp;gt; It is buffeting young tech firms particularly hard because much of their value is derived from the prospect of profits far in the future, whose present value is being eroded by rising interest rates&lt;p&gt;I wonder if this will benefit startups that are more bootstrap style. Does less funding necessary for anticipated future growth imply less damage during a recession?&lt;p&gt;Also, I wonder if we’ll ever see a return of enthusiasm and investment in tech related to the hard sciences. That’s what I originally went into, but career growth and earning potential couldn’t match soft tech so I ended up pursuing that instead. I really miss the physical sciences though. Is the problem that anticipated returns on investment are so far in the future that investors don’t think they would see any benefit in their lifetime? Or is it that we’ve already obtained all the low hanging fruit and what’s left is incredibly difficult?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nonrandomstring</author><text>&amp;gt; Also, I wonder if we&amp;#x27;ll ever see a return of enthusiasm and
  investment in tech related to the hard sciences. That&amp;#x27;s what I
  originally went into, but career growth and earning potential
  couldn&amp;#x27;t match soft tech so I ended up pursuing that instead.&lt;p&gt;I led the technical team of a London startup for a few years and it
was super exciting from a physics and electronics stance. We did did
R&amp;amp;D into acoustics, vibration, materials sciences, 3D printing and
manufacturing. We basically invented new kinds of surface microphones.&lt;p&gt;Slowly the smartphone and app ecosystem ate into our priorities.  We
shut down the lab, binned the prototypes, shelved the designs. Nothing
got patented. I ended up saying in a meeting one day, &amp;quot;This isn&amp;#x27;t a
startup any more. We&amp;#x27;re all just employees of Apple&amp;quot;. Everyone
nodded. Then carried on. I left when about 80 percent of the daily
grind was jumping through legal and PR hoops to get things past the
App Store gatekeepers, who I took to be hostile saboteurs.&lt;p&gt;Although the company lives on (and is doing well). looking back now
I&amp;#x27;d say the pathological fixation on smartphones and apps circa 2015
killed a very promising transducer tech project.</text></comment>
<story><title>The great Silicon Valley shake-out</title><url>https://www.economist.com/business/2022/06/28/the-great-silicon-valley-shake-out</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Xcelerate</author><text>&amp;gt; It is buffeting young tech firms particularly hard because much of their value is derived from the prospect of profits far in the future, whose present value is being eroded by rising interest rates&lt;p&gt;I wonder if this will benefit startups that are more bootstrap style. Does less funding necessary for anticipated future growth imply less damage during a recession?&lt;p&gt;Also, I wonder if we’ll ever see a return of enthusiasm and investment in tech related to the hard sciences. That’s what I originally went into, but career growth and earning potential couldn’t match soft tech so I ended up pursuing that instead. I really miss the physical sciences though. Is the problem that anticipated returns on investment are so far in the future that investors don’t think they would see any benefit in their lifetime? Or is it that we’ve already obtained all the low hanging fruit and what’s left is incredibly difficult?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>marvin</author><text>&amp;gt;much of their value is derived from the prospect of profits far in the future, whose present value is being eroded by rising interest rates&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve seen this finance meme over and over again, and it&amp;#x27;s mostly an irrelevant argument. Yes, of course interest rates affect the valuation of growth companies, but a successful startup might grow 1000x from early investment rounds to the time when it&amp;#x27;s an established company with lower growth and a world-dominating role in its domain. An interest rate increase on the order of 2% is laughably small in that context.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s probably going to happen is that valuations will be a bit lower at all stages, but why should that affect motivations and outcomes? The most motivated people aren&amp;#x27;t primarily in it for the money anyway, and there is plenty of room for getting rich.&lt;p&gt;Tens of thousands of people got rich after the dotcom crash, and interest rates were much higher back then. Interest rates are just a minor scaling factor.</text></comment>