Is ‘Web 2.0’ Another Bubble?. Todd Dagres y David Hornik en The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal Online nos ha dignado con un artículo con Todd Dagres y David Hornik sobre si la web 2.0 es otra burbuja, como las punto com. Os dejo las dos primeras intervenciones

The Wall Street Journal Online invited two technology venture capitalists, who were active in the dot-com days and have invested in the current crop of startups, to debate the topic. Todd Dagres spent nearly a decade at Battery Ventures before starting Spark Capital last year. David Hornik, a partner at August Capital and a former Silicon Valley attorney, writes the popular VentureBlog. Their conversation, carried out over email, is below.

Mr. Dagres begins: Web 2.0 is a bubble for 3 reasons: 1) There is far too much money chasing Web 2.0 deals. Too much money means too many companies getting funded at higher valuations. 2) There are virtually no barriers to entry in Web 2.0 and therefore the ability to develop a unique solution and sustain a competitive advantage is virtually nil. Therefore, it’s difficult for Web 2.0 companies to build long term value. 3) There is very little liquidity in the market for Web 2.0 companies. The Dow was recently at a high and still no liquidity. Without liquidity, Web 2.0 companies must rely on acquisitions to achieve liquidity and this will put a lid on the potential exit options and ultimate valuations of these companies. In short, they will be playing a musical chairs game in which there are far too many players and too few chairs.

There are some similarities between the current «bubble» and the last one that burst in 2000: Lots of incomplete and under-experienced teams, business models based more on eyeballs than cash flow, and a rash of incremental and «me too» deals.

THE PARTICIPANTS

Todd Dagres is a founder and general partner of Spark Capital in Boston. His investments at Spark include Veoh Networks and Menara. From 1995 to 2004, Mr. Dagres was a general partner at Battery Ventures, where he focused on the media, entertainment and communications industries. His investments at Battery included Akamai Technologies and Qtera, which was sold to Nortel for stock initially worth $3.25 billion.

David Hornik is a general partner with August Capital in Menlo Park, Calif. His investments include Technorati and Tickle, and he is a board member at Six Apart and VideoEgg. Prior to joining August Capital in 2000, he was an intellectual property and corporate attorney in Silicon Valley. Mr. Hornik teaches business and law at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and writes VentureBlog.

Mr. Hornik responds: I do not believe that the existence of too much venture capital money chasing too few interesting ideas constitutes a bubble. The Web 1.0 bubble inflated because the public markets were willing to bet on unproven ideas. Public markets are ill suited to evaluating such risks. On the other hand, the venture capital community exists precisely to take on that risk. While many Web 2.0 companies will fail, they will not likely fail in significantly greater proportions than has been the case with other venture investments historically. So it is hard to imagine how this so-called bubble will over-inflate. Venture capitalists will rationally stop investing in ideas that don’t bear fruit. Those that do bear fruit will gain traction and either be acquired or go public. Those are the traits of a rational market in my mind.

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Fuente: [the wall street journal]

tags: e-learning, aprendizaje, web2.0, blog, web 2.0, David Hornik, Todd Dagres