“If it feels a little bubbly, well, that’s how innovation happens.”
-Packy McCormick
Last week I wrote a post about why this cannot continue. By “this,” I mean the ease at which people are making money in the stock market.
It’s no fun being a Debbie Downer, which is why I was thrilled to read an uplifting piece that was the ying to my yang. The Best is Yet to Come, by one of my favorite writers, Packy McCormick, doesn’t necessarily rebut what I wrote, but offers a reason why the innovation is just getting started. Whether or not prices reflect most of the innovation and then some is a different subject matter entirely.
Here’s Packy outlining why he’s so bullish on technology, entrepreneurs, and why jobs will soon become liquid.
Big, splashy liquidity events and soaring prices pull the next generation of innovation forward, indirectly and directly.
Indirectly, they inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs to take their shot. So many multi-billion dollar companies have been founded within the past decade that creating the next one seems feasible.
Directly, they’ve created thousands of tech millionaires who want to invest in the next generation of unicorns. They’ve seen that it’s possible and that the outcomes can be huge. If their idiot bosses could do it, some young, hungry genius can definitely do it. As one small proof point: in the past few weeks, a wave of people from recently-public tech companies have joined the Not Boring Syndicate and started putting their winnings to work to fund the next generation.
There are, in my opinion, some pockets of the market that make little sense based on even the most optimistic growth rates. But that doesn’t mean we’re in one giant bubble that will leave dozens of dead unicorns on the side of the road.
I don’t think this is 1999. I don’t think the Covid winners will all see a 90% decline like we saw when the dot-com bubble burst. These businesses are too strong, too dynamic, and have seen the future. There is no going back.
I’ll leave you with this from Packy.
Today, companies can hire a developer in India (via Pesto), a designer in Sweden (paid via Panther), and a CFO in New York (supported by Ramp). They’ll work together in a Huddle HQ, and spin up new office space as easily as they open a new Google Doc. They can raise money via AngelList Syndicates, Republic Crowdfunding, or directly from stakeholders via Fairmint CAFE’s. Or better yet, keep their equity and get paid for their recurring revenue upfront with Pipe. They can use Stripe to handle payments, Twilio to handle messaging, Shopify to set up a storefront, Marketerhire to hire a part-time marketer, FUSE to manage inventory, Barrel to build their digital identify, MainStreet to scan for free money. Soon, they might even be able to plug in GPT-3 to write copy or handle low-level tickets.
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