At first glance, it's an exciting time in Silicon Valley. Anyone with a good idea can run with it. The culture fosters it. People and organizations are ready to support it. Realtors take their rent in equity.
Money is almost infinite as long as there are new investors and stock prices go up.
Ideas are plentiful, as creative people are encouraged to invent products, services and business models for that infinite platform called the Internet. Everyone wants to be a chief executive officer, but no one wants to be chief operating officer, chief financial officer or head of sales and marketing, let alone a sales manager or development honcho. Once a head of sales and marketing has gone through a successful start-up, he or she wants to be a C.E.O. too. The best venture-capital organizations now incubate people, not ideas. These people work as venture capitalists until they see an idea they like, and then they go run it with financing from their erstwhile employer.