Working Thoughts

These are lyrics from songs I like (Fated to Pretend by MGMT and Looking For Astronauts by The National), but they came to mind as I read an article on Fortune.com this week called The Implications of too Much VC Money and too Little Startup Talent by JS Cournoyer.

Cournoyer highlights the market for technology talent and focuses on the supply and demand curve is currently very much in favor of the worker. Evidence of this is Google giving 10% raises across the board. This was to prevent an ever escalating clash with other tech firms. But another tactic is underway as well – buying start ups for the engineers. Companies like Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Oracle are flush with cash. They are looking for astronauts.

But here we sit with 9.6% unemployment. And remember we need about 2.5% GDP growth to generate jobs, so to lower the unemployment rate to 8.6% growth would need to be around 5%. Where is the innovation for this to happen?

Investors believe it’s in Startups. Investment is near the levels of 1999, the last gold rush. It’s a smart play really, invest in a potential target of a company like HP – a company with lots of cash – and work them to transfer some of that wealth in the form of a purchase. Knowing what companies fit the portfolio is important. This is our decision, to live fast and die young.

Although web development is always big, I think the next group of experts is in data. The growth of data is estimated to be increasing at a compounding rate of 60%. We won’t be hearing statements like “I need more data.” We’ll hear “Can I trust the data?” When a resource over a 5 year term is 10x more abundant you know money is to be made.