It's kind of amusing that so many in Silicon Valley rail against Wall Street and "financial engineering" when the biggest "winners" of this tech boom are products of Wall Street and "financial engineering."
If we're talking only about start-ups that have gotten big during this boom, then you're very wrong.
Uber, Xiaomi, Airbnb, Palantir, Snapchat, Didi Kuaidi, Flipkart, WhatsApp, Pinterest, and Dropbox are among the biggest winners so far. There's nothing Wall St or financial engineering about any of those. They're all legitimate businesses and or services that consumers blatantly want.
Look at the investors in today's later rounds and the structures of the late-stage investments.
This has nothing to do with consumer demand. There was consumer demand for subprime mortgages too. What we're talking about is where the late-stage money is coming from and how the valuations are being manufactured.
