Think of bootstrapped companies that do not WANT funding: IPO success=more investment hype, more VC money thrown around (very often irrationally),more competition, harder to hire, especially in SF, all services are more expensive.
goes both ways. Trying to buy services? (for me, dark fiber and data center space) is way more difficult now than it would be without a bubble. (that, and I don't want to sign long-term contracts on any of that stuff, 'cause I know it will get cheaper after the crash, and that I'll have less of the high-end customers to pay for it, too.)
On the other hand, customers are far more free with their money. (but that doesn't help me as much as you'd think; My big weapon seems to be my willingness to accept a reasonable margin; e.g. I can lower my prices more than the competition. (yes, yes, amazon has lower costs than I do. But they also have more credibility, so that translates into margin rather than into savings for the end user.) For me, the big upside is that individual Engineers have more disposable income that can be put towards the 'hobby' budget, which is the budget most of my customers pay me out of.
I dono. I have a long history of crying 'bubble' long before the crash. I refused to buy a house in 1999 because I thought housing was a bubble.
Only recently have I started thinking about this bubble as something that would last long enough to take advantage of on the upside. I have pretty extensive plans to take advantage of a crash, but I'm only now considering how I can take advantage of the upside.
