2011: The tech bubble, where Australian venture capital went missing?
2011 was an up and down year, with 2-speed economies across the globe. In Australia, most of the talk has been of a ‘resource’ bubble (with sprinkles of ‘housing’). Elsewhere, froth was brewing from the ‘tech bubble 2.0’. The US (or specifically, Silicon Valley) was the source of most concern. Valuations for early stage companies were ‘crazy’, ‘out of control’ and ‘way too frothy’. It was a topic for much navel gazing and debate. The tech blogs loved it: Was it 1999 all over again? Was it even a bubble? And if so, did it really matter, given all the ‘crazy’ valuations were for private companies? The only investors who’d be affected if/when it burst would be already-rich white guys on the west coast (vs mom and pop shareholders in tech bubble 1.0). ...