Hilariously sarcastic posting from Marc Andreessen (the guy who started Netscape) and now runs Ning.
His point: It may be a bubble – but is that a bad thing?
(Note that because he caters for an American audience, poor Mr Andreessen has had to put a disclaimer on his post pointing out that it is sarcasm.)
I could quote the whole thing. But I shall restrain myself…
“It’s a bubble.
A huge, massive, inflating bubble.
We’re all doomed.
Doomed, I say!
It’s all over.
Stick a fork in it.
It has ceased to be.
The metabolically-differenced lady has sung.”
“Entrepreneurs? Smoking dope. What are they thinking? Why aren’t they all working for Apple, helping to build a fatter Nano? What’s wrong with them? Potsmoking, mussed-hair, rooftop party-going, trendy glasses-wearing, sandal-clad, Red Bull-snorting, laid-getting wankers, the lot of ’em. The sooner they realize the world never changes and there are no new opportunities to pursue, the better.”
“You big companies — you eBays, you Yahoos, you Googles, you Amazons? Yes, and you, Microsoft? Think the new new B2B — back to boring. What’s with all these new products? The world is confusing enough. Shut ’em down and let’s go back to the good old days: Windows ME, Mac OS 9, dialup modems, and 640 megabytes ought to be enough for everyone. You’re just screwing us all over with all this new fancy broadband video-enabled phone-call-making wifi web-based lightweight touch-interface gorgeous long-battery-life flimflam — just look at how you keep dropping the damn prices.”
He’s right- there is money to be made and value to be generated. But the Web and and tech business is skittish: full of me-toos, charlatans and snake oil salesmen. So there’s also time and money to be frittered away chasing the hype. We’re in another “Cambrian explosion” of technology. Much of it will be killed off by the selecting force of the market. Just make sure you’re not invested in a species that goes extinct.
The winners will be businesses that understand customer needs, behaviours and motivations and that really work to create easy, useful, delightful products and services.