LMAOROTG!!
The leftys in Silicon Valley of course are funded by the SA Kingdom. Afraid their well is going run dry. Hope it does and ruins their ridiculous speculative economy, Silicon valley starts to end its political control. Maybe it will trigger a sell off of FANG stocks.
(Let Maxine lead the charge instead and Portland idiots to really wake up the nonsense everyday.)
Hypocrites.
Great news for home ownership and valuations to plummet with crazy off the charts real estate prices, a huge cut in VC start ups, more low income people can move back in that have been kicked out by rising rents.... what a laugh, hope Softbank pulls out and SA moves to invest in midwest based businesses get those investments in military weapon manufacturing and sales. Huge slap in the face of feces city on the bay. Hope more homeless arrive there from other states for the great freebie benefits and weather and socialism. Moonbeam can go down with the sinking ship. Meanwhile hard working taxpayers LEAVE the state for the midwest and the elite have to pay all the bills and clean up the streets.
Techcrunch blabs...
โAlmost no one we reached for comment wanted to participate in the story, though behind the scenes, we heard the same things from different sources who have a vested interest in keeping the peace with the country and its Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman:
There is no proof. Weโre waiting to see what happens. Youโre naive if you think this is the only regime that both funds Silicon Valley and tortures its own people. I would rather scale my company using Saudi money then cap my opportunity by trying to ensure that my funding sources are pure.
In fairness, Silicon Valley companies are used to
getting awaywith a lot. Outrage over one perceived calamity often
dissipates quickly as itโs replaced by another. No doubt a week ago, there was an expectation that the media would move on from the journalist who vanished inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey one October afternoon.
However,
SoftBank โ the Japanese conglomerate that has been shoveling billions of Saudi dollars into tech and other companies โ seems to be having second thoughts.
According to the Financial Times, SoftBankโs COO Marcelo Claure has said for the first time that there is โno certaintyโ that SoftBank will launch another Vision Fund, the $93 billion vehicle it is currently investing and that received roughly half of its capital from MBS and company.
SoftBank is โwatching developmentsโ to โsee where this goes,โ Claure added.
If SoftBank or other recipients of Saudi Arabiaโs capital are hoping for a surprising turn of events, they should watch what they wish for. If thereโs a twist at all, it may well be that a journalist who many in Silicon Valley had never heard of until two weeks ago causes its long economic boom to bust.
It may sound far-fetched; it isnโt.
โโโโ> A
huge percentage of the money flowing into Silicon Valley in recent years has come from the kingdom. <โโโโโโ-
Thatโs been just fine with founders and investors, whoโve grown fat and happy off that flow of capital. Indeed, while some have suggested these sophisticated businesspeople were somehow tricked by the charming prince, itโs more likely they had a different rationale: that if and when the market turned, it would be Saudi Arabia left holding the bag.
In the meantime, that money has sustained countless startups with round after round of funding. In tandem, round sizes have gone up. The amount of money that VCs manage has gone up. The number of years that it takes venture-backed companies to go public has gone up.
โโโโ> In many ways, Saudi Arabia has changed the very nature of
the venture industry.<โโโโ
Without those riches โ and itโs going to be pretty hard to return to that well anytime soon โ startups will have to look elsewhere.
Some might try their luck on the public markets. Others may have to settle for smaller valuations. Presumably, some will fail, at long last.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/17/s...tory-would-go-away-instead-it-may-end-an-era/
