Investors should be retreating into realism, not pure gloom. But when you look at some technology companies, whose stock is so oversold on the down side that it makes no sense at all, you have to wonder. More than a decade ago, not long before the 1987 stock market crash, I put together a business plan for a publication I wanted to start in New England. The crash came, but he didn't budge in his commitment because he planned to stick with it for the long term. In the end, the venture fell through due to other problems, but what I learned stayed with me.
All venture capitalists talk about building businesses for the long term.
Most of them probably mean it. But a remarkable expression became prevalent in recent years among entrepreneurs, VCs, bankers and all the other people who got into new ventures around Silicon Valley. It was irrelevant that the sellers might be taking public investors or the acquiring company for the proverbial ride. Caveat emptor and all that. Given the amount of money still rolling around the valley, I'm not convinced that long-term thinking has made much of a comeback.