Katie Benner reported on the front page of yesterday’s New York Times that, “Silicon Valley start-ups were set to face a great reckoning in 2016. Yet the crash hasn’t happened.

“Last year, many tech executives, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs were convinced that a multiyear boom that had propelled young companies to great heights could no longer sustain itself. Some said it would end apocalyptically. Michael Moritz, an influential start-up investor at Sequoia Capital, declared many of the companies ‘the flimsiest of edifices.’ Bill Gurley, a venture capitalist at the Silicon Valley firm Benchmark, proclaimed that the start-ups would bite the dust. ‘Winter is coming,’ others intoned.

“The worst fallout may yet come, but many of the start-ups have hung on. Across Silicon Valley, engineers are still commanding annual salaries that average $136,000, according to Hired, a recruiting firm. Demand is brisk for $4 buttered toast, and office space rents remain near record highs. The biggest start-ups, like Uber and Airbnb, continue to land billions of dollars in funding. And investors are shoveling money into venture capital funds, which raised so much cash in the first half of this year that it rivaled the amount raised in all of 2015.”

Yesterday’s article indicated that, “For all of the hand-wringing, ‘there just hasn’t been much of a downturn,’ said Paul Buchheit, a managing partner at Y Combinator, a prominent start-up incubator that nurtured companies including Dropbox and Airbnb. ‘I don’t even see many companies going out of business.'”

Ms. Benner also pointed out that, “Silicon Valley’s innovation engine continues even with the survival of so many start-ups — and not just the fittest — because of the abundance of venture capital. There has been a proliferation of new enterprises in up-and-coming fields like artificial intelligence, robotics and virtual reality, creating potential areas of growth for Silicon Valley technologists to build on next.

“For techies who have been grappling with the not-yet-a-crash environment, the adjustment in their outlook is evident in their speech. Entrepreneurs who once talked about how fast their start-ups were growing are now spouting from a bible of fiscal responsibility.”

The New York Times article added that, “A Silicon Valley start-up crash may still take place, especially if the stock market tanks or if there is a financial shock to the system. And some tech investors like [ Mr. Gurley, the venture capitalist, are still sounding the alarm. In April, Mr. Gurley wrote a blog post that laid out how venture investors remain overcapitalized to a dangerous degree, which made investing in start-ups more risky.

“While there has been no crash since then, he does not regret any prognostications. He said he was glad if young companies had stopped overspending because of his warnings.”

Angus Loten reported in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal that, “When Haier America’s Deanna Johnston needs to update or fill gaps in the company’s information-technology systems, she looks at products and services offered by startups.

“But even after a trial run, she rarely buys them, Ms. Johnston said.

“Instead the appliance maker’s chief information officer said she often uses cheaper prices offered by startups as a bargaining chip in price negotiations for similar tools sold by large enterprise IT vendors.”

The Journal article stated that, “As Haier and other large corporations become increasingly digital, they are spending more time checking out technology offered by small, independent tech firms.

“Yet startup products and services for enterprises, while more accepted than a few years ago, still face significant resistance on the path toward revenue, CIOs and industry analysts say.”

Thursday’s article explained that, “Only 23% of 112 large corporations in a recent survey said working with startups was very important, according to MassChallenge, a startup accelerator, and software consulting firm Imaginatik PLC. Respondents included insurers, manufacturers and software firms, among other companies across a range of industries, roughly half of which had at least 10,000 employees and more than $5 billion in annual revenue.

“Jonathan Lehr, managing director of Work-Bench Ventures, a venture-capital firm for enterprise tech startups, said the problem can be simply ‘getting in the door and then demonstrating value,’ rather than offering lots of free trials that don’t convert into paid licenses.”

The Journal article added that, “A handful of enterprise IT startups are fetching billion-dollar valuations. In North America, 51 of 94 startups with valuations over $1 billion—known as ‘unicorns‘—sell business technology, according to CB Insights.”

Mr. Loten also pointed out that, “Revenue-generating IT startups can become attractive targets for acquisitions, leaving CIOs to speculate about the fate of fledgling products and services once they are swallowed up by larger vendors, said Jim Ferrato, CIO of call center operator IBEX Global Solutions PLC…[H]aier’s Ms. Johnston said she agrees that startups are best deployed for functions that aren’t essential to core business operations. For instance, the company is currently using a free employee iPad check-in tool developed by a startup, she said. ‘If they go out of business, we’ll just switch over to a paid version with little disruption.'”

Nathan Olivarez-Giles reported on Thursday at The Wall Street Journal Online that, “Two years ago, when startups were flush with money, a wave of hardware and software design companies were eager to work with them and get paid in a mix of cash and equity—stakes that they hoped would one day pay off handsomely. But as startups increasingly struggle, those designers are getting more selective.”

Mr. Olivarez-Giles noted that, “These days, however, the dynamic has changed. Austin, Texas-based Argodesign and other smaller design firms increasingly want to be paid in cash to balance out earlier startup gambles.

“Since last fall, venture capitalists have been scrutinizing the values of startup shares after years of pumping up valuations and focusing on growth. Volatility in the public stock market and a lack of initial public offerings have discouraged investors, including mutual-fund companies, which in recent months have marked down the values of their stakes in more than a dozen startups.

“The median valuation of startups fell in the first quarter to about $18.5 million from a high in last year’s third quarter of $61.5 million, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.”

The Journal article added that, “However, [product designer Mark Rolston] added that he still believes equity startups will lead to financial success in the long run. ‘As long as we maintain a balance between the cash side and the equity side, we can make a strong business,’ he said. ‘We really believe we’ve got blockbusters’ in their cash-equity lineup.”

Matthew Patane reported in today’s Des Moines Register that, “Iowans and others looking to start their own companies need to look at everyday problems and think of how to fix them, not just complain about them, according to Jeff Hoffman, an entrepreneur and speaker.

“‘If you want to be an entrepreneur, next time you see a problem that seems to be bothering a lot of people, instead of going home and complaining, stop and say, ‘Could I fix this? Could I make it better? Is there a more efficient way to do this?” Hoffman said.

“Hoffman, who was part of the founding team of online travel website Priceline, is heading to Iowa City next month to speak at the University of Iowa. The university’s John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center is hosting ENTREdays, a three-day series of events to celebrate entrepreneurship.”

The Register article quoted Hoffman as saying: “One is you need to find a real problem to solve. I’m just being honest when I say, I get so many entrepreneurs now that come to me and say ‘here’s what I’m working on’ and it’s a solution looking for a problem … The first thing is looking at the environment around you and trying to find something you can make better, a problem you can fix or an opportunity you see.

“The other way is to have an actual purpose: Why are you doing this? What are you trying to achieve and why is it important? The entrepreneurs who are driven by passion and purpose, those are the ones who far outperform the ones who were just doing it for a paycheck.”

When asked about how to keep a startup going, Hoffman noted that, “The first thing is customer intimacy. What I mean by that is getting out of your office, getting into the problem…the more time you spend out of the office and in the problem around the people who are dealing with that problem and meeting the people who you expect to be your customers the more longevity you will have.”

In a reply to a question about any potential stigma associated with a startup in the Midwest, Hoffman indicated that, ” In the past, the reason it was easier to do things in Silicon Valley and they had the advantage was the knowledge on how to launch tech companies and the tech skills for everything were centered around there. … there’s just no need to be in Silicon Valley anymore. You can launch a tech company with the right skills and the right people in Des Moines just like you could anywhere else now.”

Recall also that some entrepreneurs have analyzed the high cost of wages and real-estate in the Bay Area, which has been an impetus for some to consider locating in less expensive markets.