On Wednesday morning, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia invested $3.5 billion into Uber. It called to mind what an investor told me about a month ago when we were talking about the end of the current boom in Silicon Valley and what happens next . This person didn't want to be identified, but he's one of the best-known venture capitalists in the valley and has been involved in the early stages on some companies that went big. He told me that a lot of companies would deflate and be unable to raise another round without revaluing their stock. But he doesn't expect a sudden bubble pop like in 2001 because there's still so much money flowing into venture capital, especially from overseas. As he put it: It's so amazing how much money is available on a global scale. It's unprecedented ... I speculate — and I qualify with that word — there's a lot of money in Russia, the Middle East, and China that's looking for country diversification. Or in the case of Russia and Middle East, it may be looking for sector diversification. With oil price shocks, if you're a Saudi prince, do you want all your money in oil? As this money continues to flow in, the unicorns will be able to buy more time. But eventually, many of them won't be able to repay those latest investors, and they're going to get soaked. In fact, investor Bill Gurley had a warning for these late-stage investors last month as he predicted the end of the unicorn boom: It's not the second inni
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