* The demand for investment, or at least the perceived demand for investment, is at a decades low point. Safe investments have proven anything but safe, and there is a sense that any valuations may be lower in the future, no mater how good the enterprise’s fundamentals and outlook.

* Along these same lines, cash is king more than ever; even growth firms seem to value their cash on hand more than their killer technology in the labs now.

* There is a sense that the depth of this economic dip will not only create new winners and losers in the marketplace, but that predicting what the marketplace will look like, and what it will demand over the next 5 years, is impossible. There could be seismic shifts that unseat everyone’s best laid plans.

Of course this uncertainty is opportunity as well, but it’s a bit like trying to play jazz in very difficult circumstances. You’ve got this amazing emerging idea for a solo coming to mind, but you sense the bass player and drummer are about to launch into their own solos giving you nothing solid to work against. Meanwhile the patrons have been walking out of the joint in droves in response to the air sirens going off across the city. Making great music in those circumstances is certainly possible, but success and whether anyone will hear it is less certain than ever.

Still, there is so much opportunity in these dynamics, it seems any entrepreneur awake could not help feel a buzz.