'99: a .com needed a team of engineers and a big expensive server to try a new idea
'11: one guy, one weekend, and a day's pay for a cloud service to try a new idea
There are legitimate fundamental differences between then and now. Think about how many people toss up a weekend project for review here on HN that would have been a huge team effort back then. I'm not saying I can see the future (like a lot of people tried to then), but it doesn't seem as hazardous this time around.
Yes, you can "try" an idea in a weekend, but it's only going to be a rough sketch, not a polished experience. You still need a team and months/years of effort to bring it up to the next level so it can get the billion dollar valuation. How many weekend projects have billion dollar valuations?
Edit: In reply to mkr-hn whose comments I cannot reply to for some reason... I believe that this thread was about a bubble and billion dollar valuations not weekend companies worth much less.
You're overestimating the "logic" used by the MBAs who drove the '90s dot-com bubble. The costs were higher, but cash flowed easily from VCs back then, as well.
'11: one guy, one weekend, and a day's pay for a cloud service to try a new idea
There are legitimate fundamental differences between then and now. Think about how many people toss up a weekend project for review here on HN that would have been a huge team effort back then. I'm not saying I can see the future (like a lot of people tried to then), but it doesn't seem as hazardous this time around.