VC Market Is on Pace for Strongest Year Since Dot-Com Era (bloomberg.com) 64
Venture capitalists are spending cash at levels not seen since the dot-com era, and theyâ(TM)re raising money at a pace to match. From a report: Last quarter, VCs spent $27.3 billion in the U.S., according to a report set for publication Tuesday by research firm PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association, a trade group. That's the most in any second quarter since the group began tracking quarterly data more than a decade ago. Combined with a record-setting first quarter, the VC market had its strongest first-half-year performance since 2000. The $57.5 billion invested in startups so far this year has already surpassed the full-year total for six of the past 10 years. This year is on track to exceed the $81.9 billion invested last year, which was itself a record since the dot-com boom.
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...and that's the problem with today's "investigative journalists". They *know* certain things and announce them with 100% conviction, completely regardless of factual events. If facts don't agree with their *knowledge*, too bad for the facts!
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End of boom and bust (Score:3)
I agree a crash is coming, but I'm not so sure about the burn. Why would governments and central banks refuse to continue propping up junk assets with quantitative easing money all of a sudden? The predicted downside of QE - high inflation - never materialized, so as far as they are concerned there are no election cycle down sides to the money printing policy.
The real problem is that bankers have so successfully conflated paper wealth and real wealth, that the real economy is dying a slow death from poor re
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The inflation did happen, just not in the way everyone thought. Most of the money went to organizations that invested it, so it never filtered its way into the pockets of the average person. Instead, it got invested in stocks (including stock buybacks), property, crypto, and VC funding.
the vc market (Score:3)
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So they are sinking money into companies that fuck up american welfare (Über), in order to improve their welfare? Damn, that's actually smart.
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More than that. They're sinking money into companies that increase the demand for oil, since Uber drivers use more gas than driving yourself.
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since Uber drivers use more gas than driving yourself.
Ah, but what about *robot* Uber drivers?... Eh? See what I did there?
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Uber drivers use more gas than driving yourself.
Four of my last five Lyft rides were shared with other passengers. Lyft did a good job of matching up passengers, so the route was no more than 5 minutes out of the way for anyone. I saved about 30% on the fare by clicking "shared ride", even on the one ride without additional passengers.
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Sure, and then the person giving you a ride is going to cruise til they find another gig. Or at the very least (assuming it's waiting for them) to have to drive to pick up that person and to get home
It's possible that with shared rides it'll even out, or even be a positive. But I doubt it. The overhead when you're not in the vehicle is too damn high. It's the same reason Lyft and Uber have been shown to increase congestion.
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I think it's more complicated. I Uber/Lyft to places with congested parking. No circling looking for a spot. Hard to quantify.
The biggest benefit is getting drunk drivers off the road. Hard to quantify that, too.
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Getting drunk drivers off the road is a good thing, but that's irrelevant to the question of burning fuel.
As for "going to congested areas", well, we're really going to have to disagree. I've seen the horrible traffic jams caused by Uber/Lyft pickups in congested areas, the 30 minute (each way) crawls through the 1 mile per hour traffic to get to/from the drop off points.
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Well you do have a point there. Aside from stadiums, areas where people are likely to use the service are also likely to have no infrastructure for taxi stands or parking lots where people can wait. If they had parking lots, people would just drive themselves. I have about zero tolerance for people that double park while picking someone up.
Though 30 minutes of straight ubers lined up sounds like a bit of hyperbole. Its probable that area would have been jammed anyhow.
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Except for the presence of Uber/Lyft had people pull right up to attraction rather than park 1 mile away and take the free shuttle buses. It was built with the assumption that people would do that, and the streets don't support attendees' traveling there directly and instead only support the shuttle buses (and a small percentage of VIPs/people with special needs). But they're public streets, so what can you do?
To answer my own question used to be: "what
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Sure, and then the person giving you a ride is going to cruise til they find another gig.
Ubers don't need to "cruise" to get fares. You are thinking of taxis.
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You should tell that to literally every Uber I've ever been in. They drive around a bit between propping someone off and picking up the next person. They don't pick up people off the street, but on Friday nights they drive close to the bars to be the next ride hailed. Or otherwise try to predict where the next hailers will be.
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Re:Others (Score:4, Interesting)
Basically, they/he are trying to divest from oil because they know that it will run out one day
Actually, this is the opposite of what they worry about. They are discovering new oil fields, and new ways to keep old wells productive, far faster than reserves are being depleted. Their real concern is falling prices and a long term worldwide glut caused by over production.
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Japan Softbank, solar + bitcoin (Score:2, Interesting)
Nah, you could read the article and realize its largely from Japan's Softbank.
"That doesn’t include a stockpile raised by SoftBank Group Corp. The Japanese conglomerate, which is looking to spend $100 billion in the technology business, is a driving force behind the VC fundraising frenzy."
And you could then Google Softbank and see what they're buying. Which seems to be solar and green tech and blockchain and bitcoin exchange tech.
Not true (Score:1)
"But that doesn't explain the money that has already been dumped in. "
They're $100 billion in so far, buying up ARM, and a big chunk of Uber, and Grab, back in March they announced $200 billion for the New York solar project.
In contrast China's outside tech fund is a piddling $15 billion, and the US ones are tiny, e.g. Lightspeed $1.8 billion.
Really this is Softbank's VC play here.
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China makes it difficult for their citizens to invest outside of China, except in certain industries like energy.
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And real estate. China buys a lot of foreign real estate.
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So... has everyone just given up on unicode and now blames apple for using it rather than slashdot for not supporting it?
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If no unicode means no emojis then I'm ok with Slashdot not supporting it.
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A lot of good Kuwait's money, based on gold, did when Saddam invaded.
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... aaaaand it's gone! (Score:2)
We distributed your investment, but the market reconubulated, so now it's valueless.
Care to try again?
This won't end badly (Score:2)
yay (Score:2)
So the bubble's about to pop? (Score:2)
We all know the Trump crash is coming - I'd say this is a sign of the End Times...
Bubble burst? (Score:2)
When will its bubble burst again like the dotcom? :P