Dear Subscribers,

Every week, I read a growing number of stories about doom and gloom in Silicon Valley, with irresistible headlines around bubbles “popping” and “fizzing” or whatever else bubbles do.

Ailing unicorns. Dying unicorns. Unicorpses. Things getting (even) worse for Theranos. Yahoo withering on the sales vine. Missed earnings. Elusive profits. There’s almost a smugness to some of the coverage: After years of boom times, Silicon Valley is finally getting its comeuppance.

There’s no doubt that something has changed in the Bay Area: Poorly performing companies can’t raise easy money. And poorly performing companies that did raise easy money must adjust their expectations, as Benchmark’s Bill Gurley pointed out this week.

But the mood on the ground is far from as morose as media coverage would make you think.