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| Facebook is not worth $33 billion (37signals.com) | ||
| recommended by 5 users | 2010 | 315 points by malbiniak | big tech | original thread | | ||
| 5 users recommended this thread. What they said: |
| charlief Oct 30, 2010 | on: Google's YouTube Founder/CEO + Google's AdMob Founder Both… | context |
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nikcub Feb 18, 2017 | on: The Bull Case for Snapchat | context
> It's the ICQ of a different 3 years worth of teenagers Snapchat is already 6 years old and my mum joined it last week to keep up with all her friends and family. That's the thing with the bear case, you're right 95% of the time because most businesses fail but you never have to justify or be accountable for the 5% of times you're wrong. HN history is littered with pessimism about tech companies - Facebook isn't worth $30 billion[1], Facebook isn't worth $50 billion[2], Facebook isn't worth $100B[3], Uber isn't worth $10 billion[4].. Snapchat isn't worth .. repeat. rinse. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1719975 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2062145 |
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21 Apr 23, 2018 | on: Cryptonetworks and why tokens are fundamental | context
Remember when people were saying that it's crazy to invest in Facebook because there is no way Facebook will ever be profitable? |
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paul Dec 1, 2015 | on: 15B More Reasons to Worry About Facebook (2007) | context
I love reading these old articles. Here's another fun one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1719975 |
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arjie Jan 6, 2017 | on: Facebook will lose 80% of users by 2017, say Princeton… | context
This made me go back and find a couple of Facebook threads right after IPO that made predictions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1719975 (Facebook is not worth $33 billion) - This was more than a year before the IPO. The market cap is 10x that today. Lots of poor predictions but also some cautious optimism from some people. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4002730 (FB down 8% at opening) - Some rubbish number pattern matching and lots of doom and gloom. Interesting |
If I told you where I work, when I started working there, it doesn't make sense that you'll be able to derive my motivations or my character. Of course compensation is always a factor in choosing a place to work, but I am sure each individual case is so different and so complex that holding them to a greed metric is a little heavy-handed.
It isn't even a question about character here because if these people were concerned about money before everything else, many of the smartest Silicon Valley people could have had a job on Wall Street a long time ago. On Wall Street, almost 100% of the time you'll be very well off (remember how much GDP goes through that street). Wall Street will take brains anytime. If not Wall Street, FB IPO expectations haven't changed significantly in a year, these people would have moved over ages ago if they wanted a big equity cut.
There is only so much liquidity to go around with 1700+ employees and a marginally liquid market on secondmarket. For me, second market changes the game a bit because the error in valuation is potentially a lot smaller (there was a very good discussion on FB over here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1719975). Either way, I wonder the size of the equity packages involved. Even if they are large, someone like Lars is very well off and spent most of his whole life building things so I don't think he is a jump to FB for the IPO kind of guy. Choosing where to work, when to work is a complex decision and not indicative of any character most of the time.