Is the tech boom over for entrepreneurs?

September 18, 2009 | Chris Morris | Comments | |

There are a lot of tech start-ups launching these days, but Tom Siebel, Chairman of First Virtual Group (and founder of Siebel Systems) says they’re more bells and whistles than real breakthroughs. In this entrepreneurial thought leader lecture given at Stanford University earlier this year, Siebel argues that all of the great technological advances and development of great companies are behind us – and the growth rate for the tech sector is just on par with the rate of current economic growth.

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About the Author, Chris Morris

Chris Morris is editor of the Entrepreneur Corner on VentureBeat, helping start-up business owners launch and grow their companies. He previously worked at Yahoo! Finance, where he was managing editor, and as director of content development at CNNMoney.com. His work has also appeared in Variety, CNBC.com, AOL and Forbes.com.

  • jeffreymcmanus
    This is spectacular, please keep posting more stories like this. As an entrepreneur I'm eager for this meme to become broadly transmitted. It will discourage my competitors and cause the companies I'm trying to disrupt to become more complacent than they already are.
  • All of the great technological advances and development of great companies are behind us? Wow, that might be the craziest thing I think I have ever heard from someone who is obviously a genius, not to mention a technology pioneer. If you ask me, it sounds like very old school thinking. Mr. Siebel should know better. Technological developments will come and go, but "technology" is not a fad. It will always and forever evolve, and there will always be new booms. For instance, look at the CleanTech sector. I think (hope) that he was just trying to challenge us entrepreneurs to think harder and reach further. If so, it worked on this entrepreneur.
  • Siebel's comment reminds me of the US patent officer's comment in the late 1800s that he didn't think there was a need to have a patent office anymore, since everything that could have been invented of any substance already was...
  • bm
    @ Don - Or even more recently the claims of "it will never happen again" & "nothing will ever be as big" when Netscape IPO'd. Trying to predict the future using the lens of the past is a great way to limit ones thinking, particularly when it comes to technology.

    When perfect health, ubiquitous (real) wealth, perfect energy equilibrium, & intellectual enlightenment are achieved, perhaps then, one could make a such a claim.
  • Mike Azzarello
    Tom Siebel stole this quote from the 1920's, when during the Worlds Fare it was believed that everything that could be invented had been invented.
    This is more an indication that Siebel's best days are behind him.
    Rock on!
  • Tom Siebel is absolutely right- at present we're not seeing many new disruptors in the tech market. What we're seeing is entrepreneurs rushing to create new bells and whistles- facebook apps, twitter apps, iphone apps etc.., What's lacking is any significant revolution in technology. If we examine the cause for this I would argue that this is in large part due to increasing scarcity of seed capital for start ups as well as the increasing trend for VCs to back riskier ventures. VC's want disruption but rarely are they able to invest in disruptive concepts at an early stage= too risky for them
  • joseph_yen
    I think the advances and companies come from how people use technology, and we've just started scratching the surface on that.