Observations about Tech and Silicon Valley
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I personally believe that this will keep this startup bubble going longer that it "naturally would", though it will pass through different phases of what's popular to fund. Where else are the wealthy going to invest if they get soured on social-tech funding? Something else will have to rise up first.
Or more simply, why have Series A funds plateaued considering all other stages have experienced increased competition? What is unique about Series A that is creating this lack of VC competition?
The California gold rush ended 1855 (reading Wikipedia) but the technological growth in Silicon Valley hasn't started until at least the 1950s. There's three generations difference. Can one really claim risk tolerance is higher in the area? Or money more abundant? Or easier to create a business because of the gold rush?
The modern startup ecosystem involves people with six-figure jobs starting companies with money that isn't theirs, and should they fail they fail back into even higher-paying six-figure jobs.
As opposed to the rest of small business America where people routinely take out large personal loans to finance their ventures and put their homes on the line to do it without the comfort of a Plan B should things go south.
Which isn't to belittle tech founders, but let's have some perspective here and not get lost in the smell of our own flowery prose.
The abundance of funding has certainly made founding a business easier - it has also made it tremendously less personally risky. Saying that the Valley somehow has more stomach for risk sounds nice, but is it actually true?
If anything Silicon Valley has devised a highly efficient system by which ideas can be tried at extremely low personal risk, and that in fact aversion to personal risk is what has made it so successful...