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Serial tech entrepreneur and professor Steve Blank argues that Facebook and the "social media" craze are ruining Silicon Valley's innovation machine.
How?
By making venture capitalists so greedy that they're only funding companies that could be worth billions of dollars in a couple of years.
In the old days, Blank says, venture capitalists used to be much more patient. They would fund true "technology" companies that they knew would take 5 to 10 years to reach maturity.
But nowadays, Blank argues, VC's have become so intoxicated by the lure of instant riches from the likes of Facebook and Instagram that they're mostly funding companies that have a chance to be worth billions overnight.
Of course, Blank also concedes that this is always what Silicon Valley has done--moved from one investing fad to another. The Valley has been the country's high-tech innovation engine for nearly a century now, and the types of companies VC's are obsessed with has changed every few years. Once the social-media craze has played out, Blank says, venture capitalists will go back to funding a more diverse set of companies (or at least a different kind of company).
And maybe they'll go back to being more patient, too.
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