WSJ Does Some Link Trolling on Web 2.0
The Wall Street Journal is apparently link-trolling via its article Wednesday, "Is Web 2.0 Another Bubble?". Fine, here you go guys.So, is the piece any good? It's fine, but you won't see anything new here if you've read elsewhere on the subject. While a discussion between two VCs -- Todd Dagres at Spark and Dave Hornik at August -- might sound like a good way to ground the discussion (and Dagres does get off a couple of decent shots), it feels lightweight and data-free. For example, there is lots of discussion about private (and public) companies' earnings, but no specifics, just arm-waving. Similarly, Dagres extols the virtues of patents and and R&D, and then one-liner-disses the only venture sector -- life sciences -- where that approach is taken.
A deeper issue, however, is that both Dagres and Hornik are fine guys, but (like yours truly) they're also both bubble-babies. Dagres' partnership stint (1995-2004) at his former employer, Battery Ventures, was a one-bubble affair; Hornik entered the venture business (from law) in 2000 just as the dotcom bubble went bust. Neither has multi-bubble experience from which to opine, so it's hard to take this stuff very seriously.
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