Stop talking about bubbles and get back to coding. All the billionaires made in that era didn't pay attention to the idoicy going on around them. They just executed. Now I'm off to follow my own advice.
And this is how you can tell it really is a bubble: people talking about becoming billionaires. It's silly and smacks of a get-rich-quick scheme.
If a bubble is best defined as irrational exuberance taking valuations as multiples of intrinsic value, then the fact that the exit strategies are different and there are fewer IPO's than 10 years ago is irrelevent. Web 2.0 seems to be clearly Dot Com Bubble 2.0.
Just cause he included billionaire in that sentence, does not safely support the inference that he's thinking of a get rich quick scheme, or prove that we are in a bubble.
People will always look to the achievement's of Bill Gates and Larry Page regardless of the cycles the industry maybe in. In a recession or depression, investors will still always quote Warren Buffett.
I wasn't talking about people becoming billionaires, but you could be right: maybe there will never be another billionaire made ever again. Getting back to coding doesn't smack of a get rich quick scheme, just an exhortation to cut the bullshit. Does it matter if there is one or not? If you are making something that is fulfilling a need you shouldn't care.
At any rate, I'm hypocritical by responding to a response of a response to my criticism to stop the bubble talk and just to get 'er done. Let's end the recursion now.
