Well, from one perspective, each of these failed companies could have been testing their own "sustainable competitive advantage" thesis. A thesis that turned out to be incorrect. After all, you don't know your sustainable competitive advantage really is in fact sustainable and and a competitive advantage until you win. (e.g. Google. They were just another search company, and one that could have failed like so many others.)

From another perspective, each of these companies is wandering through, as the author puts it, the "wildernesses nobody knows" looking for opportunities and either didn't find one or weren't able to grow that opportunity quickly enough.

Some say we're in a bubble. Others say we aren't. Frankly, I don't give a damn. I just see that there's tons of innovation being funded. Some innovations may be evolutionary, others may be revolutionary. Funny thing is: you often don't know what will be evolutionary or revolutionary until you try.

I'm glad many people are trying.

I'm sorry, I feel I came across as making a broader point than I was. Probably because of the "birth and death" bit which really isn't what I meant to focus on.

I'm talking about a few specific examples that are astonishingly easy to clone yet are being assigned enormous value. Groupon is what I was thinking of especially, but I didn't want to "name names"... which is probably why I came across as making a broad point. Dropbox is now being challenged in this way, and many have been talking a lot about their sustainable competitive advantage since the whole Steve Jobs "feature" quote. Instagram.

I wasn't making a direct comment about tech startups in general, many of which are carving out real markets they want to crush.