

Infographic: Are We in the Middle of Another Tech Bubble?  - PixelRobot
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/07/infographic-are-we-in-the-middle-of-another-tech-bubble/242071/

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bproper
Yes - A boom implies the rising valuations are justified. In a bubble the
rising prices are based on speculation and hysteria.

We are not in a tech bubble that resembles the dot-com days. There is a ton of
money at the seed and early stage for untested ideas (Color) and many VCs and
angels will lose money. But more entrepreneurs will get funded and that
instinct to gamble is why America has such a terrific tech sector.

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bgentry
This is one of the best infographics I can remember. Really puts a lot of
things in perspective that I had forgotten about from the 1999 bubble.
CueCat?? AllAdvantage??? Doesn't even compare.

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trotsky
Like most writing on the subject, it seems the creator had an opinion on the
subject and then created the presentation to persuade the reader it is
correct. Which is quite normal in the field, of course, but when presented
with a chart or graph a reader often believes that they're making up their own
mind based on the raw data. In some cases this is true, but it is very easy to
cherry pick only the data that supports your point - which is pretty clearly
what the creator has done here. I'm not saying that means there is private
tech asset bubble, but a bunch of pre-selected data points also doesn't prove
there isn't.

It's really difficult to conclusively prove anything until you're looking back
at the event. Until then there will always be two sides to the argument.

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pitdesi
Creator here (I put together the data for FeeFighters, and KissMetrics
designed it)... I DO have the view that we're not in a bubble at the moment,
but I went into this exercise without much of a view on it... I didn't cherry
pick the data at all, I just threw in everything I could think of (hence the
length!) Certainly some things now do feel like a bubble. I wanted to put in a
section of particularly bubblicious fundings, but the only one I could come up
with was Color.

I don't remember the last bubble all that well... I was SHOCKED when reading
up on it to make this graphic. Shit was crazy back then, companies literally
got funded over a shitty plan on a napkin.

I've since then seen a few counter-factuals... the only one that comes to mind
is real estate prices in Palo Alto. Let me know if you think of others, maybe
we'll do a second one and show another side of things.

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Dove
Thank you for making an infographic out of useful information in a
statistically adept way. The infographic that focuses on communicating data
accurately is a rare treat. I particularly found the valuation and revenue
comparison interesting and well done.

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cpeterso
Boom or bubble? Is there a difference? (Honestly, I don't mean this as a
rhetorical joke.)

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ChuckMcM
Boom - Square : disrupting the payments market by sidestepping entrenched
lock-ins (verisign terminals, merchant agreements, etc)

Bubble - Pets.com : doing the same thing somebody else does execept with a Web
UI.

A couple of examples that stood out for me.

But to answer your question more directly, a 'boom' is a durable growth in
value due to measurable productivity and revenue gains. Typically rising
revenue/employee and net-income/per-customer are good indications of 'boom'. A
Bubble is often characterized by an increase in value without significant
change in the fundamentals of a company (either revenue/employee or
income/customer). The latter is speculation that in the future the company
will be worth more than it is now, the latter reflects that the company is
_actually_ worth more now than it was before.

Loved the graphic too, it was a good characterization. I think there is a
tremendous amount of trepidation about the possibility of being 'caught' in
another bubble. So much so my Dad asked me if he should move his remaining
401k balance from equities into gold because he was worried the tech bubble
was going to 'crash the stock market again.' I suggested that the thing that
is going to crash the stock market is the AAA debt crisis.

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Androsynth
Has Square made any money yet, enough to put even a dent in their $169M
funding? Trotting out companies that haven't validated their product with the
public and haven't made much money seems like something that would happen in a
bubble, not a boom.

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ChuckMcM
I don't think they have publically announced anything. TechCrunch reported 1M$
in mobile transactions per day [1] which they didn't deny. If they were a 1%
transaction fee business that would be $10K/day in revenue, $300K/month. At 2%
that would be $600K/month.

Having seen first hand with the hassle of what it was like to take payments
before them I understand their value proposition better than I did the one for
pets.com (and I do have a dog so presumably was in the pets.com target market)

Of course the whole NFC thing could crimp Square's growth but that is more
along the lines of yet-another-disruptive-payment scheme rather than the old
system was good enough.

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/02/square-now-
processing-1-mil...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/02/square-now-
processing-1-million-in-mobile-payments-per-day/)

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yakshaving
As someone who appreciates great information designer, I was thoroughly
impressed with this graphic. Nice work Kissmetrics/Feefighters teams!

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rwolf
I am confused. The "Q2" on the x-axis makes it look like we're comparing half
of a year's total to previous years' totals. My squishy human brain wants to
put each point on equal footing.

Edit: I see, the graphs are continuous.

