• The Economist, Wednesday, June 15, 2011 12:15 PM

For an academic and well-mannered debate on the existence of another tech bubble, head over to The Economist where lecturer and retired entrepreneur Steve Blank is making his case against Ben Horowitz, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (which owns shares in Facebook, Zynga, Groupon, Twitter and Foursquare).

"I am not arguing that Netflix, Salesforce.com and LinkedIn are not overvalued," notes Horowitz. (What about Facebook, Zynga, Groupon, Twitter and Foursquare?) "I am simply arguing that their valuations have not become completely divorced from any rational thought. If they have not, we have not taken a major step towards a bubble." Hofstra University's Dr Jean-Paul Rodrigue, Blank explains, "observed that bubbles have four phases; stealth, awareness, mania and blow-off. I contend that we are approaching the early part of the mania phase."

What's more, "The signs of the new bubble are the Linked-In initial public offering (IPO), Facebook's stratospheric valuation and the rapid rise of early-stage startup valuation," Blank adds. Wrong, wrong, and wrong insists Horowitz, before listing 40 reasons why.

Read the whole story at The Economist »