The Dark Side of Startup Outcomes.

Boardroom Governance Newsletter #44 | September 5, 2023.

Art by DALL·E 2

I’ve been writing about the Zeitgeist in Silicon Valley on a monthly basis since I began this newsletter in June of 2020. The shock of the pandemic did very little to slow down the growth of tech companies riding on a decade+ boom cycle fueled in part by low interest rates (ie. “ZIRP”), government stimulus¹ and lock-downs, leading to massive growth and frothy capital markets, including Big Tech², crypto and private markets.

The result was a record breaking 2021 in terms of IPOs (over 1,000 new listings), SPACs (613 new listings), M&A (over $5 trillion), VC investments (14,411 US venture-backed companies raised $332 billion), and Crypto (total market cap exceeded $3 trillion), among other bullish metrics. But that bubble burst and 2022 brought a downturn which is still reverberating throughout the market.

I’ve written about some of the governance implications of this new era of downrounds, shutdowns and layoffs:

• Downrounds. According to Carta’s Q2 2023 State of Private Marke…