Hi Rudedog, RE: "but something needs to be done"
Agreed. The industry is seeing a major slowdown in innovation in the early stage area, during the Angel phase, before the VC stage. VCs have a lot of money, so that's not a general problem for the industry, but the Angel stage has been hit very hard and needs some type of fix soon. Otherwise the pain will be greater for everyone in high-tech, if there isn't sufficient innovation coming out of the pipes.
There are around 38,000 people with 10m or more, in which only a very small % of those folks are Angels. That's not a large pool to spur growth. (During a boom that number is higher because folks with 5m will feel comfortable enough to invest.)
Angels are definitely the underpinnings of this country's high-tech growth. I wonder if Greenspan gets this key ingredient to innovation?
Lowering interest rates will help the housing market, but how does it immediately help high-tech innovation? Only a tax cut does, to Angels (not VCs, since VCs don't seem to need it). Senator Clinton was working on this in NY before the attack - a great draw for startups and Angels. But I would bet that's stalled now.
Regards,
Amy J |
