http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6IQ_FOCE6I&feature=playe... from 2007 but still semi-relevant :)
(anyone know if there are videos of the lectures available?)
A 40% increase in a stock index in ~3 years is an amazingly huge bull market and the sense of frothiness was everywhere at the time. In general, telescoping the "bubble" to 18 months doesn't make sense to me -- the craziness really started with the Netscape IPO. But it was a hockey stick and so those 28 months of the curve look particularly crazy.
http://www.mercurynews.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/pr...
"Facebook Backer Wishes Women Couldn’t Vote" http://gawker.com/5231390/
But linking to gawker in the comments of an unrelated story probably isn't the best way to express your concerns.
I agree that the concern should be expressed differently, but the concern sounds genuine. The OP is a lay-history of Silicon Valley of the 90's and it's very interesting history at that. Concerns about the historian's background are not ad hominem attacks; they are relevant to understanding the narrative. For example, I was personally unaware that Thiel is a die-hard libertarian, and agree or disagree, surely that colors his narrative and affects my interpretation of it to some extent.
To use Thiel's own (quite wonderful) metaphor that culture is like a dinner conversation, it's important to know who these people are that are at the table.
