Is it just me, or are big-ticket gambles no longer viable in today's Valley culture? The article mentions that "Ultra local services like Uber, Lyft, Instacart, ZeroCater, Chewse, etc. are raising more cash than world domination disruptive ideas." Add this to an underwhelming W13 Demo Day in terms of said WORLD DOMINATION and I'm starting to wonder if investors are losing their edge.<p>There's plenty of opportunity for truly revolutionary disruption in all sorts of sectors. I just don't hear about it. As someone with disruptive ideals (but outside the valley) am I just being paranoid or is there really a problem?
There is no series A crunch, only too many seed rounds IMHO.<p>Very few companies need to raise more than $1M to reach profitability any more, so traction should be required before raising money, but if investors wait for traction, they'll miss the really big deals. This sets up a dynamic, particularly influenced by the JOBS act, where unsophisticated investors can flood the market with cheap capital.<p>When it comes time for a startup to raise money from serious investors, they won't touch it unless it looks like Midas. I'd argue that the Series A levels haven't really changed from year to year, but that we perceive it as a Crunch because of the ridiculously large number of seed rounds.
Palo Alto has always been a 'university town' with respect to Stanford's presence there. It benefitted from professors who were both teaching and entrepreneurs, or nurturing ideas that came out of their labs into full grown companies. Berkeley has a similar vibe for similar reasons.<p>Traditionally San Francisco has been an artistic and design hub but not an engineering focused environment. However, that is a great environment to create products which are distinguished primarily by their design.<p>It's surprising however how dysfunctional the whole San Francisco political scene remains. One would hope that the influx of young workers and the tax base they represent would encourage improvements in the management processes in order to capture long term economic growth. Its not clear that will happen though. It makes me wonder how durable a decision to base your company in SF will be.
> <i>Palo Alto/University Ave is no more the place to be. You have to be in San Franciso. Caltrain/BART rides are perceived too long.</i><p>Is this true? If so why is PA real estate still so sky high? I understand if your startup culture is based on youthful hipness, but that is orthogonal to the viability of a startup.
> Palo Alto/University Ave is no more the place to be. You have to be in San Franciso.<p>I agree. The culture, inspiration, community, and experience here is a bit unparalleled. I can just as easily lock myself away to build product as I can go out and get away from marinating in self induced frustrations.<p>There is also money out here. People are willing to travel and visit, there are a ton of venues for meetups, etc. I couldn't imagine a better place to be (at the moment) for both tech and life.
> Startup employees don’t make as much cash as I thought it would be. And that shouldn’t be the perspective.<p>what should be the perspective then?
> South Bay is getting more expensive. Rentals at $2500 for 2 bedrooms in Mountain View and Palo Alto. East PA and Fremont continue to be cheap.<p>Meanwhile, those of us living in the East Bay are somewhat happy with the price they're paying and the short length of their commute :)