????幾個(gè)星期前，我接到了一個(gè)讓我有些吃驚的電話，但是也沒有吃驚到目瞪口呆的程度。我不久之前曾經(jīng)寫過一篇關(guān)于Arista網(wǎng)絡(luò)公司的報(bào)道，正是這家公司的一個(gè)代表打電話給我，說他們的CEO想在公司即將舉行的IPO中為我提供一點(diǎn)“友情股”。對方拋出的“繡球”詳細(xì)到明確提出了我有機(jī)會(huì)以IPO價(jià)格購買的股份的份數(shù)。而且他特別表示，希望我明白這份好意是CEO賈什瑞?烏拉爾本人的意思。

????我拒絕了。我簡單地解釋說，我是不可能接受這份好意。給我打電話的這位代表就是當(dāng)初與我接洽采訪事宜的那一位，我能聽出來他明顯有點(diǎn)不太自在。我還告訴他，把購買這些股票的機(jī)會(huì)提供給我絕對是個(gè)壞主意。因?yàn)檫@家公司肯定也向其他既非公司的朋友、也非員工家屬的人（比如我）拋出了類似的橄欖枝。

????這家公司現(xiàn)在還沒有上市，我也沒有從他們那里聽到其它任何消息。（我5月7日給這家公司打了電話，問是否他們也為其他記者提供了IPO股份。這家公司的一位女發(fā)言人讓我看了一份IPO籌資文件，上面寫著存在一個(gè)定向的股權(quán)計(jì)劃——此外再?zèng)]什么特別的地方。）但是我掛斷電話后，我意識到，現(xiàn)在我已經(jīng)完全可以確定，我們正處在一場科技泡沫里。

????正如本文開頭所寫的那樣，當(dāng)我報(bào)道過的一家公司向我拋出購股的橄欖枝時(shí)，我并沒有感到特別奇怪，那是因?yàn)槲也⒉皇堑谝淮闻龅竭@種事，而它正是發(fā)生科技泡沫的眾多跡象之一。20世紀(jì)90年代末和21世紀(jì)初的“.com泡沫”時(shí)期，我一個(gè)供職于《圣荷塞信使報(bào)》（the San Jose Mercury News）的朋友就是由于買了“友情股”而被套牢了。（她說那位賣給她股票的CEO的確是她的一個(gè)朋友，我沒有理由反駁她的這句話，不過這和重點(diǎn)無關(guān)。）如果市場真的“?！钡搅诉B企業(yè)高管都愿意“跨過道德的邊境”的地步，那么，它無非是表明，末日相對來說已經(jīng)不遠(yuǎn)了。

????但它并不是唯一的跡象。斷言泡沫是吃力不討好的行為。有些人可能根據(jù)比較估值分析，提出私人和上市企業(yè)的價(jià)值被高估了。這種方法還好，只是不太精確，而且對確定時(shí)間沒有幫助。也有人指出房地產(chǎn)的緊俏、付給工程師的工資上漲，或者在舊金山的熱門餐館里想訂個(gè)位子都很難等等。但這些其實(shí)都是能夠佐證科技泡沫的跡象。

????我用來確定科技泡沫的方法主要圍繞著我的個(gè)人經(jīng)驗(yàn)——我曾經(jīng)經(jīng)歷了上一次科技泡沫。比如一個(gè)很好的指標(biāo)就是，現(xiàn)在負(fù)責(zé)報(bào)道科技行業(yè)的記者職位太多了。硅谷一直是這些日子最熱門的話題，不僅僅是因?yàn)椤都~約客》（ The New Yorker）、《紐約》雜志（New York ）、《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》（the New York Times）等知名媒體在搞科技新聞，近年還涌現(xiàn)出一批專門報(bào)導(dǎo)科技行業(yè)的數(shù)字媒體，比如PandoDaily、The Information、Re/code和Mashable等等。這種現(xiàn)象反過來又促使《華爾街日報(bào)》（the Wall Street Journal ）和《彭博新聞》（Bloomberg News）等都出現(xiàn)了招聘科技記者的熱潮。這些記者們紛紛忙著搶所謂的“微獨(dú)家”，也就是新鮮、獨(dú)家、具有話題性的報(bào)道。但是，這些新聞大部分除了跟少數(shù)人有關(guān)，與我們大多數(shù)人的生活幾乎沒什么關(guān)系。

????I was surprised but not completely flabbergasted by the phone call I received a few weeks ago. A representative of Arista Networks, a networking company I've written about recently, phoned to inform me that the company's chief executive wanted to offer me "friends and family" shares in Arista's upcoming initial public offering. The offer was explicit, down to the number of shares I'd have the opportunity to purchase at the IPO price. The caller specifically wanted me to understand this offer came directly from CEO Jayshree Ullal.

????I declined. I briefly explained that it was impossible for me to accept the gift that was being offered. I also told the (clearly uncomfortable) Arista rep, with whom I've dealt for stories forFortune, that it is a horrible idea to be making these shares available to me. That's because the company must be similarly propositioning other business partners who, like me, are neither a friend of the company nor family members of its employees.

????I never heard another word from the company, which hasn't yet gone public. (I phoned Wednesday to ask if other journalists had been offered IPO shares; a spokeswoman pointed me to a section of its Form S-1 filing which states that a directed share program exists -- and nothing more.) But as I hung up the phone, I realized that I finally had tangible confirmation that we are squarely in the middle of a tech-company bubble.

????At the outset of this post, I wrote that I was merely surprised by this slimy suggestion that it'd be okay for a journalist to buy into the IPO of a company he has covered. That's because, as with so many of the telltale signs of a bubble, I have seen this before. During the dotcom boom of the late 1990s and early aughts, a colleague of mine at the San Jose Mercury News got into hot water for accepting a "friends and family" share allocation. (She contended that the CEO who offered her the shares was indeed a friend. I had and have no reason to doubt her assertion, which was and is beside the point.) When times are so good that executives are willing to disregard the difference between ethical and unctuous behavior, it's just one sign that the end, relatively speaking, is near.

????It's not the only sign. Calling a bubble is something of a fool's errand. 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 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.