Is the Web 2.0 Bubble Bursting? - BusinessWeek

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 09 Om Malik at GigaOM has the news of a grim meeting that leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm Sequoia Capital held yesterday for its portfolio firms. The CEOs were greeted by an image of a gravestone that read: “R.I.P.: Good Times.” The message was that the economic downturn could make things much worse for tech startups, most of which to date have been surprisingly unaffected by the market maelstrom. Meantime, Mike Arrington at TechCrunch reports that prolific angel investor Ron Conway, who has backed many dozens of startups including Google, sent a letter to his portfolio companies suggesting they hunker down and lower their burn rates, in essence “raising an internal round” of money through cost-cutting. So is the sunny sky falling in Silicon Valley? Om says this is bad news for the... [read full story]