I agree that if you're starting a new venture and you don't have optimism, you won't get anywhere. But if you also hide from reality, you're toast as well. This stuff isn't from 'sky is falling' kooks -- it's from Warren Buffet and Jim Rogers and Paul Krugman... a long list of the great financial and economic minds. Here it's Soros. But they'll all be ignored until it's too late. People don't want bad news, just good news.

In my mind, that's why this is, actually, hacker news. A start up is a little boat. We need to know when the storm is coming earlier than others and take action: http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2008/04/battening-down.html