It is entirely a function of fashion + money. I know that sounds stupid but it is.
The fashion part comes from what it means to be 'hip' which entirely driven by the flavor of the hour. We've talked about it on HN a bit but the best analog is that the coolness factor of 'doing a startup' got to be high enough that we got a huge influx of people who "want to do a startup" which is distinct and different from folks who "want to do X, this is the company I created to do that."
Too many people these days are doing startups like they used to do rock bands.
The second part is money. When rich people do it, especially people who were "like you" before but are now "rich" it creates a sense in folks that don't know any better that it is easy, or that anyone can do it. It is what causes people to move to LA from Nebraska to make it big in the movies.
So no, it is not a new phenomena. And the proportion of the bullshit to actual content is proportional to the fashion + money aspect. In 2000-2001 after the dot com bust was settling, none of the cool kids wanted to be startup people any more, so the people you ran into who were doing startups were more likely to be doing it because they believed in what they were doing. Now with Facebook and Google and the newly minting of a bunch of fresh twenty-something millionaires (or billionaires in some cases) the folks that mercifully left have unfortunately returned.
Spot on. Those who see a startup as the purpose of doing one are soon going to find out how hard this stuff is. Even being a freelancer is pretty tough. Its not all nice and easy. Takes a lot of work and commitment to be able to pull anything off. Thats why everytime somebody wants me to be their co-founder I tell them I already have enough of those. What I'm looking for is work of the paid variety. Something that most of these dreamers lack. :)
Off topic:
Chuck, I'm still waiting for that datacenter in my pocket idea to launch. ;)
The fashion part comes from what it means to be 'hip' which entirely driven by the flavor of the hour. We've talked about it on HN a bit but the best analog is that the coolness factor of 'doing a startup' got to be high enough that we got a huge influx of people who "want to do a startup" which is distinct and different from folks who "want to do X, this is the company I created to do that."
Too many people these days are doing startups like they used to do rock bands.
The second part is money. When rich people do it, especially people who were "like you" before but are now "rich" it creates a sense in folks that don't know any better that it is easy, or that anyone can do it. It is what causes people to move to LA from Nebraska to make it big in the movies.
So no, it is not a new phenomena. And the proportion of the bullshit to actual content is proportional to the fashion + money aspect. In 2000-2001 after the dot com bust was settling, none of the cool kids wanted to be startup people any more, so the people you ran into who were doing startups were more likely to be doing it because they believed in what they were doing. Now with Facebook and Google and the newly minting of a bunch of fresh twenty-something millionaires (or billionaires in some cases) the folks that mercifully left have unfortunately returned.