3 ms·

The large unregulated financial market has plenty of patience for R&D by Amazon, Google, Facebook, Uber, etc. They just don't have patience for R&D by Danaher.

The large unregulated financial market has plenty of patience for R&D by Amazon, Google, Facebook, Uber, etc. They just don't have patience for R&D by Danaher. Assuming you were investing, would you personally be more likely to park your money in Danaher or Uber?

CountSessine 11y ago
What kind of R&D is Uber doing?
- shard 11y ago
  Aren't they researching self driving cars?
  - CountSessine 11y ago
    Right you are. I didn't know this. They are indeed researching self-driving cars.
digi_owl 11y ago
The only reason they get a "pass" is because their share price is too high for junk bond strip mining.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Their share price is high because greedy wall st types believe that they will make lots of money in the long term.
sergiosgc 11y ago
Amazon, Google and Facebook have protected themselves from the "limited time horizon" of the market. They have either small floats or class B shares, guaranteeing that the long term vision of the company is grounded on effective control by the ones steering the vision. Managing future value is challenging. It's easy to say that the market is thirsty for value now. However, if you submit to a golden "invest in the future" strategy, your company may be inefficient (from an investor's perspective): Returns will be lower than what you can get elsewhere, meaning that the company should release funds to investors instead of investing internally. On the other hand, if you submit to maximizing local (in the time axis) returns, you'll surely forego disruptive jumps, their gains on efficiency and the future profit they entail. It's not a simple problem.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  The "protection" GOOG/AMZN/FB have may prevent hostile takeovers by Wall St if share prices drop, but it can't keep share prices high. Given a choice, you have $10k to spend on either Uber, Facebook or Danaher shares. Danaher will continue to invest in the future, rather than being gutted. Where do you park your money?

CountSessine 11y ago

What kind of R&D is Uber doing?

shard 11y ago
Aren't they researching self driving cars?
- CountSessine 11y ago
  Right you are. I didn't know this. They are indeed researching self-driving cars.

digi_owl 11y ago

The only reason they get a "pass" is because their share price is too high for junk bond strip mining.

yummyfajitas 11y ago
Their share price is high because greedy wall st types believe that they will make lots of money in the long term.

sergiosgc 11y ago

Amazon, Google and Facebook have protected themselves from the "limited time horizon" of the market. They have either small floats or class B shares, guaranteeing that the long term vision of the company is grounded on effective control by the ones steering the vision. Managing future value is challenging. It's easy to say that the market is thirsty for value now. However, if you submit to a golden "invest in the future" strategy, your company may be inefficient (from an investor's perspective): Returns will be lower than what you can get elsewhere, meaning that the company should release funds to investors instead of investing internally. On the other hand, if you submit to maximizing local (in the time axis) returns, you'll surely forego disruptive jumps, their gains on efficiency and the future profit they entail. It's not a simple problem.

yummyfajitas 11y ago
The "protection" GOOG/AMZN/FB have may prevent hostile takeovers by Wall St if share prices drop, but it can't keep share prices high. Given a choice, you have $10k to spend on either Uber, Facebook or Danaher shares. Danaher will continue to invest in the future, rather than being gutted. Where do you park your money?