I think what everyone here is missing is that the press is looking for "Tech" companies doing wild, innovative things with technology.
-The WSJ article was in the "technology news and insights" section.
-TechCrunch has the word Tech in its name.
-Demo Day is held at the computer history museum
-this is Silicon Valley
Sorry I didn't attend demo day, but when I read the summary I felt none of the companies were very high tech, and I'm sure that's what the press felt too. I was waiting for Peter Thiel to say: "we asked for flying cars and you gave us painless divorce."
Don't get me wrong, I would love to invest in companies that make money over companies that use some fancy new technology.
I call bullshit on the claim that there were no tech-oriented companies. One of them is a platform for automating flying drones. Another is a platform for EE circuit design. These are both pretty nerdgasmic if you ask me. edit: oh and how could I forget Thalmic.
You don't need to be "the next Google" to be an exciting tech company, though. Even AirBnB are not "the next Google" but they're still hugely successful.
That's exactly his point though: AirBNB is not really a high tech company. Other than scaling issues, it's a relatively simple CRUD web-app, their competitive advantage is in their business/social/whatever skills.
Yeah, I think you're understanding the complaints well. Why even bother with YCombinator if you do something boring that makes money. Might as well call it a small business and borrow at 8%—it would be a lot cheaper than VC.
Sorry I didn't attend demo day, but when I read the summary I felt none of the companies were very high tech, and I'm sure that's what the press felt too. I was waiting for Peter Thiel to say: "we asked for flying cars and you gave us painless divorce."
Don't get me wrong, I would love to invest in companies that make money over companies that use some fancy new technology.