Adam Lashinsky

Yes, we're in a tech bubble. Here's how I know it

[Commentary] Some will rely on comparative valuation analysis to argue that private and public prices for companies are overvalued. That's fine though imprecise, and almost no help in terms of timing. Others will point to scarcity of real estate, salaries paid for engineers, or the inability to nail down a reservation at a hot San Francisco restaurant. All are good tells of a tech bubble.

Mine, however, revolve around my personal experiences of having lived through the last one. The oversupply of journalism jobs covering the technology industry, for example, is a good indicator.

Silicon Valley is the hottest story going these days, and not just because The New Yorker, New York magazine, and the New York Times Magazine have discovered it. New digital publications devoted exclusively to covering technology have sprung up, including PandoDaily, The Information, Re/code, and (in its early years) Mashable. That, in turn, has provoked a frenzy of tech-coverage hiring at the likes of the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News.

All of these reporters are now competing for what a wise editor at one of these publications calls "micro scoops," stories that are fresh, exclusive, newsy -- and most likely irrelevant to all but a group of people you could count on your hands and feet.

The caveat is that I have no idea when this game of musical chairs will end and who will be left standing. I just know that it will end. This time around, I plan to keep my eyes open for the interesting companies and entrepreneurs that are sure to survive this strange period. Because the tech bubble is upon us -- and I fully expect it to burst.