No, I just think markets are more complicated, fluid and flexible than critiques like this make it seem. I'm old enough to have witnessed numerous decades-long waves of hype pouring money into sclerotic companies that, at the time, everyone assumed were immortal no matter how corrupt and terrible their decision-making had become - only to watch over and over again as the giants fell. I feel like every wave is accompanied by a sense of hopelessness that things will never change, and then in seemingly an instant, they do change.
I'm relatively sanguine that Google and Uber will be replaced by something better (something that's not a con game), and that the people who invest in garbage will end up losing to newer, more agile players. That's how it's always seemed to me when you look at any given 5-10 year horizon. The short term is always frothy.
I almost never invest in tech companies... except if I'm looking to make a few quick bucks on some new hype (e.g. I bought Google with a 2-week horizon right after Microsoft announced Bing's AI bot, and after Google took a huge hit because the market overreacted; turned and sold it for a 10% profit). (The exception for me is medical tech which I'm willing to take several-years-long shots on). I sit on real estate and utilities and the odd manufacturer or retailer with a history of increasing dividends, and watch the wilds of the NASDAQ with a daily mixture of jealousy and schadenfreude - because I know my own risk tolerance.
Markets are made of people. Companies are made of people. Poor incentives and deception do indeed lead to catastrophic losses and inefficiencies. Corrections are made. Fools and their money are parted.
I don't have a hatred of criticism of any sort. I do however think there's a smell when someone walks away after losing at the table and complains about the game.
Of course there’s hatred involved here. What you’re essentially saying is that the market has always been organized in such a way that fluctuations and corrections happen, so why should anyone else complain and question that? And when you are attacking the author’s person by painting him in a market loser’s light despite not knowing anything about him (and I don’t, and many who read the article don’t), how is that not personal vendetta?
The market is a manmade system that we can control by regulation, and organizing any controllable system in such a way that it generates a lot of waste before self-correcting is not necessary. Real people become aggravated when corrections happen, e.g. immigrants on a worker visa, people who moved their entire lives, people who found it hard to find the very jobs that they lost, etc. You can’t act surprised that people complain because they are on the receiving end of these corrections (“market losers” to you, right?) as if they are supposed to just put up with bullshit that was not even necessary to begin with.
Among the people who don't know people in this story, you don't know me. You act as if a person who wrote an opinion you disagree with must (1) be operating out of deep personal emotions - hatreds and vendettas, and (2) be the very personification of everything you hate, indeed, responsible for every injustice by my very attitude!
Ascribing such levels of malice out of the gate is a radicalized, religious-like, conspiratorial response to things one disagrees with. It serves no purpose except to attempt to shut down debate. In fact it has, as I have no interest in debating someone who feigns to know my intentions and believes I'm personally responsible for their problems and the state of the world.
The difference now is that we have a lot fewer companies who have captured markets. New players can't come in because the big guys run the show. Walls have been established by big companies to make it too difficult or too expensive to start.
I agree with this sentiment which is why I'm in favor of strong antitrust enforcement... but I don't think that's the complaint I picked up from the article. Their complaint seems to be that it's too easy for "colossally stupid assholes" (direct quote) to enter a space posing as a "disruptor", raise an enormous valuation for an idea that doesn't really work, and then scam consumer investors into paying for an IPO based on hype and/or pure speculation. If that's true, then it makes sense that investors will ultimately get wise to it and either start investing in things that show a proven profitability, or else lose their money. The underlying FOMO behind all these bubbles contains the seeds of its own destruction - I don't disagree with the author about that.
I'm relatively sanguine that Google and Uber will be replaced by something better (something that's not a con game), and that the people who invest in garbage will end up losing to newer, more agile players. That's how it's always seemed to me when you look at any given 5-10 year horizon. The short term is always frothy.
I almost never invest in tech companies... except if I'm looking to make a few quick bucks on some new hype (e.g. I bought Google with a 2-week horizon right after Microsoft announced Bing's AI bot, and after Google took a huge hit because the market overreacted; turned and sold it for a 10% profit). (The exception for me is medical tech which I'm willing to take several-years-long shots on). I sit on real estate and utilities and the odd manufacturer or retailer with a history of increasing dividends, and watch the wilds of the NASDAQ with a daily mixture of jealousy and schadenfreude - because I know my own risk tolerance.
Markets are made of people. Companies are made of people. Poor incentives and deception do indeed lead to catastrophic losses and inefficiencies. Corrections are made. Fools and their money are parted.
I don't have a hatred of criticism of any sort. I do however think there's a smell when someone walks away after losing at the table and complains about the game.