Cambrian Explosion

Lee Owen · Top Commenter
"What side of the evolutionary divide do you want to be on?" Whichever one is about living a healthy & stable life and isn't about squeezing more work hours into the day & conference calls onto weekends.
Reply · 9 · Like · Follow Post · Yesterday at 3:26pm

Jonathan Jaeger · Top Commenter · Campaign Manager at XL Marketing
It's not necessarily that technology does not produce enough jobs, it's that there's a mismatch in skills between jobs technology creates and the preparedness of the population at large.
Reply · 3 · Like · Follow Post · Yesterday at 6:57pm

Chris Zaharias · Top Commenter · Palo Alto, California
Some props to Cambrian Ventures for jumping on the meme before it was popular.
Reply · 2 · Like · Follow Post · Yesterday at 5:17pm

Luis Muñoz · DIRECTOR DE MERCADO at Grupo mnemo
After the Cambrian explosion the end the world was not better off but different. The Evolution does not have a purpose and it does not yield "better" species. It deals with adaptation to environmental conditions whichever these are.
Reply · 1 · Like · Follow Post · Yesterday at 7:26pm

Pratyush Prasanna · Subscribe · Top Commenter · Works at Self Employed Entrepreneur
Also smells suspiciouly like a bubble.
Reply · 1 · Like · Follow Post · Yesterday at 3:08pm

Doug Wolfgram · Subscribe · Top Commenter
Not really. A bubble happens when you get follow-on rounds of millions upon untold millions before revenue or even a decent revenue model. Start-up phase is really just a way of taking a high-risk stake in an idea.
Reply · 7 · Like · Yesterday at 4:25pm

Mike McGee · Subscribe · Chief Creative Officer at Code Academy
Doug Wolfgram agreed. There are also a growing number of startups who are bootstrapping their way to success instead of trying to acquire a large round of seed capital. If more startups focus on becoming successful through profit instead of a Series A, then we won't have to worry about a bubble.
Reply · 5 · Like · Yesterday at 6:19pm

Rashad A Salaam
Mike McGee and Doug Wolfgram - Big "IF" there--as the hype grows and valuations continue to competitively rise, as everyone wants a piece of the new web economy, more and more bad ideas get funding with out-sized expectations.

There will be a reckoning in 3-5 years.

I know it sounds super bearish, but a crash will come, so a startup better either get in and get out quickly, or be REALLY smart about how you grow your company, and hold on tightly to cash.
Reply · 2 · Like · Yesterday at 6:48pm
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Misha Chellam · Top Commenter · San Francisco, California
Totally agree with Erick's observations about the grand possibilities of a ubiquitously computed world. One quick note, many of today's seed startups compete for a scarce resource - user attention - and though more people come online each day, ultimately we only have 24 hours of attention to fill (well, 16 assuming sleep). So all the companies that survive based on advertising are competing for a relatively finite resource, which suggests a lot of species extinctions coming up.
Reply · 1 · Like · Follow Post · 10 saat önce

Ryan Witt · Subscribe · UC Irvine
true true
Reply · Like · 10 saat önce

Johannes Suriya Bhakdi · Subscribe · Founding Partner at Sophotec
Erick, this is an awesome article! I like it if you journalists widen the horizon a little bit with things like Cambrian Explosion. Thanks, I am inspired.

Btw - it's as much a bubble as the Cambrian Explosion was, or the industrial revolution. A bubble is inflation without substance - if tens of thousands of young people hack the sh... out of their laptops, talk to customers and try to innovate, it's NOT a bubble.
Reply · Like · Follow Post · Yesterday at 5:45pm

Philip Lindblom · Top Commenter
But.. we are in a bubble... Inflation without substance is exactly what's going on.
Reply · Like · Yesterday at 6:39pm

Chris Zaharias · Top Commenter · Palo Alto, California
What's most interesting about the early Cambrian is that such a massive amount of biological innovation took place almost exactly 543 million years ago. No one's figured out how it all happened in such a short period of time, but Jeremy Narby (in 'Cosmic Serpent') suggests the Cambrian is way beyond evolution's powers. Worth investigating...
Reply · Like · 18 saat önce

Philip Lindblom · Top Commenter
Chris Zaharias Perhaps earth raised a massive C round by Alien Ventures
Reply · 2 · Like · 17 saat önce

Dan Simerman · Babson College
Added to today's Posthuman Startup Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/ho5Mg.

I'm somewhat dismayed by all the companies that are coming to market without sound business models (or even a fun product). Now that everything is just a slight tweak or variation of another idea, it's no wonder that we are seeing this explosion. I think the real gems in the next year are going to come from SAAS products and not consumer ones.
Reply · Like · Follow Post · Yesterday at 5:57pm

Beezy Tarantino · Subscribe · Top Commenter · Founder and Director at GWOP Magazine
The creative individual has the most power behind the computer in today's society. I want to be the creator or producer of new technologies rather than the consumer.
Reply · Like · Follow Post · Yesterday at 3:39pm

Andrew Marc · Top Commenter · Co-Founder/Owner at BountyIt.com
Wonder what the numbers look like in terms of startups that get funding when they don't warrant the amount/any (such as Color) and which will fail for lack of funding when they do deserve it (most others)? Creating a platform for people to rank startups on their merits not who they know and direct funding from these metrics would be ideal. Killerstartups is good in that sense because they don't name drop and just let the product speak for itself.
Reply · Like · Follow Post · Yesterday at 6:51pm

Ashwin Ramasamy
Take away: Startup formation rate reminds Cambrian explosion. Is there anything else, we should take note?
Reply · Like · Follow Post · Yesterday at 3:56pm

Ciarán Norris · Top Commenter · Dublin, Ireland
Which side do you want to be on?

Too many will have no choice as the new monopolies act just like the old ones to ensure they can keep what they believe to be theirs.
Reply · Like · Follow Post · 22 saat önce

Stephen Milburn
So... as a start up in Wales I have an advantage, yeah?
Reply · Like · Follow Post · Yesterday at 7:17pm

Sidian Jones · Subscribe · Top Commenter · Social Media and Graphic Design at BookLamp
Then there is the "young Earth" perspective: Tech startups lived and thrived among steam age technologies!
Reply · Like · Follow Post · 21 saat önce

Serge D. Poueme · Subscribe · École Polytechnique de Montréal
New economy (startups) should be able in the long term to replace old economies (firms). There is something that is not yet right in the growth of the startups, they are all dominating that virtual space, but when do FB and others will come out of the virtual space to be materialized inside a real product. Because at the end of the day, the physical products gives you a longer lifetime. Google got it right and went into mobility with Android devices and its own nexus phone. There is even a Google laptop today. To survive, internet startups should not only disrupt the market but make sure they can deliver systems (software + hardware) to the consumer market in the long term.
Reply · Like · Follow Post · 12 saat önce

Ali Khan · Subscribe
Awesome article. The crux is: What side of the evolutionary divide do you want to be on?