Lacy basically shrugs off such concerns, saying that "it's the job of a VC to make risky bets at valuations which are supposed to reflect future promise and may never materialize."such concerns, saying that "it's the job of a VC to make risky bets at valuations which are supposed to reflect future promise and may never materialize."
True, but that's always been the case. What we've seen over the past couple of years is a change in investment behavior. Did the companies in Patricof's queue gain 2.5x in "future promise" over the past six months? Or have VCs gotten caught up in a market euphoria that has clouded their judgment? At the very least, the data makes it impossible to plausibly say that it's just been VC business as usual.
So we move onto Lacy's more salient point: Even if venture capitalists have lost their heads (which she doesn't believe they have), it doesn't constitute a bubble because only "insiders" will be felled. No rash of Average Joe bankruptcies or mass layoffs or food stamp applications.
What this ignores, however, is that venture capitalists don't actually invest the vast majority of venture capital. When firms like Kleiner Perkins or Sequoia Capital invest, they are mostly doing it on behalf of others. School teachers. Non-profit foundations. University endowments. Public pensioners.
These are the people and groups who get most burned by a VC-fueled investment bubble. Not a few members of the PayPal mafia who can better afford to take the loss. Venture capital may only comprise a small part of such groups' investment portfolios, but it is the part that is supposed to outperform public equities and bonds. When expected alpha goes rotten, future obligations get put at risk. It's not as broadly-devastating as the housing crisis, but since when did a bubble have to be of the same mass as a tsunami?
I also am not yet ready to say that the bubble has deflated, although others are beginning to make that case. The public markets have been too volatile to reach long-term conclusions, and the week's IPO debacle mostly was limited to low-profile issuers (let's wait until next month, when Groupon and Zynga are expected to price). Plus, just today another daily deals site raised money at a reported $700 million valuation.
So maybe this Internet bubble is already over. Or perhaps it has a bit more runway. Either way, it is real. And it matters.