I guess Sam is aging now :) Thats when you start thinking - "wow! this is how I feel about life and it totally makes sense. Let me share with the world". And now you understand why elderlies love to talk and give "sound" advice to any person without grey hair.
Frankly, given the number of startups, I too think it must be easy to raise money. May be not from A16Z, YC, LSV or other experienced ones but I see so many new VC firms now days.
I have been in SV since 2008, so not shocked by startup culture. What shocks me is so many startups with very trivial product/service which could easily be just a feature in their competing product. May be I'm questioning their value and overhead involved in developing that 'feature'. But again, there are some really good startups, and totally worth trying whatever they are trying to build. It's just their number is still no better than it was in 1999 or earlier. I wonder if there are any hard numbers of startups - how many? how many employees? their average experience/age? rate of 'success'? etc.
> most of the people are lying,
That's bit harsh. There was a report few days back on HN, where a company claimed that while typical VC are slowing down in investing, private hedge funds and such are pumping unprecedented amount of money in tech startups. Although, I might have to agree about SV being in 'bubble'. I live there and see shacks being listed for $1mn.