The Bubble 2.0

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.

—Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker’s Guide)

Katerina Fake (of Flickr fame) claims that it’s a bad time to start a company. Yikes. I think that I disagree with her. But even if I did not, the crazy thing that makes my head spin is that the atmosphere that engenders this kind of statement (all the web 2.0 hype and acquisitions, the high demand for web-developers (we had far fewer responses to our recent solicitations for PHP contract programmers, than 2 years ago), etc and etc) makes me feel like I am riding high on the Internet Roller Coaster again, just like 6 years ago when I worked for that doomed dot com.

This high on the Roller-Coaster feeling is mostly a nice feeling because, like many people, one of the things that stresses me out more than anything is Job Security. For years and years after the Dot Com Crash I felt unemployable, and if I was working, I felt that at any minute I could be back on the streets and scrambling along with 5000 other contractors for the one measly development job on Craig’s List. These days my skills are in high demand. It is great. Recent history tells me it won’t last, but for the moment my Job Security Anxiety is somewhat quelled, leaving me with surplus anxious energy to spend on other worries...