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Interesting that the employees reported that they expect to stay at FB for 4 more years.

by sjg007 8y ago

gammateam 8y ago
That's because long term investments are short term investments gone wrong.
- discodave 8y ago
  Warren Buffet would like a word with your investment strategy.
  - astrange 8y ago
    Buffet’s not doing what you do. If you pay a liquidity premium, use it.
  - gammateam 8y ago
    Warren Buffett engaged in highly speculative corporate raiding before it was even a term. Forget his Baby Boomer conservative investment guru facade. Thats not how he generated wealth, it is a component to how he preserves wealth because he has a liquidity issue.
    - shostack 8y ago
      Any recommended links to more reading on his early days with those tactics?
      - gammateam 8y ago
        No, not really, I'm more surprised anyone cares, in this context he is just a trader that does trader things, the luxury of maintaining polyamorous relationships with no challenge from his wife and social circle, accumulation with no interest in conspicuous consumption, insulation from financial consequence when relationships fall apart. It's just activist investing, read about that and maybe his name might come up. His switch to mild mannered thought leader is probably a story of redemption after corporate raiding caught on - in the pejorative - during the 80s.
        mav3rick 8y ago
        Wow that's a new low. Bringing in his personal life to insult his professional life.
        gammateam 8y ago
        They weren't insults to me, I want those privileges too, he's very inspirational. It is surprising to me that people want a particular image of him, when I see the opposite of what he projects and I like it. I like the influence. I forgot other people hadn't seen it, but I am surprised how important his image is to people. I think these privileges are a part of his type-A trader life, and is par for course for successful traders living that life.
        mav3rick 8y ago
        Not every trader has an open relationship. You are just brushing people with a broad stroke. Buffet is his own individual who had his own arrangement with his family. You are insinuating that he's the same as all "traders" while also insinuating the things "traders" are notorious for. No one's perfect , but time and again Buffet has set a good example for principled investing. You allege that he took a wild swing and got lucky, but he follows what he learnt from Benjamin Graham and then invests. He's always done that. For the layman he suggests just resting and vesting in index funds which have time and again worked over a long period of time.
        gammateam 8y ago
        I don't consider his incongruence with a nuclear family to be an imperfection, I consider it privilege. I never said even said it was a lucky wild swing, there is no interpretation of what I said that meant that, your hyperbole is based on a completely wrong assumption of anything I care about it. Perhaps you decided to latch on to "highly speculative" as "wild swing and got lucky". Lets talk about the curve of risk, buying distressed companies after consolidating your friends and family's money with the addition of massive borrowing on top of that to accomplished your 'principled investing' would still be called highly speculative. This exists within the category of "highly speculative". There is nothing wrong with that? I find it entertaining that his approach to inspiring people is the exact opposite of risk, as he could easily just be another Carl Icahn or Soros if he wanted and only inspire finance majors to make massive bets against governments. He is so successful at this image that people would actually ask me to post a source for my allegations. This is obviously a lot more important to you than it is to me, and your cognitive dissonance is showing. This has been enlightening.
      - sjg007 8y ago
        Look into AmEx and the olive oil fiasco.
        sobani 8y ago
        Wikipedia [0] doesn't mention Buffett in its description of the event. All I can find is a description of Buffett betting that AmEx would recover after this crisis. [1] That sounds in line with Buffett's reputation: bet on a good company that for whatever reason has a low price. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salad_Oil_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salad_Oil_scandal [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-and-the-great-salad-oil-swindle-2016-2?international=true&r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-and-the-great...
minimaxir 8y ago
Even with a stock decline, RSUs are hard to give up.
- notyourday 8y ago
  The real fun is going to start when there's going to be no chance for those that have started recently to be in the money on the options that they are getting. Those leaks would make Sandberg portrayal in "Chaos Monkeys" look like a glowy puff piece in Vogue.
  - rconti 8y ago
    They don't get options, they get RSU grants.
    - evgen 8y ago
      RSUs still need to vest, and while you are not under water if the price drops you are definitely looking at a much smaller payoff for sticking around another year. The long tail of RSU payout over the vesting period also means that when things are going up you have an incentive to hang around because those early RSUs are paying off big, but if the price drops then there is really no incentive. The golden handcuffs are not a single RSU grant but the cumulative effects of several years of grants all slowly paying out -- a sagging price means that the big payoffs you were expecting from the tail end of early grants that have appreciated significantly are suddenly much smaller payoffs than you had been counting on. Yes, it is still a nice pile of money, but you had several years of watching it become a big pile of money and seeing it shrink makes you start to wonder if the grass is greener at places that are not as morally bankrupt...
- snarf21 8y ago
  The ole golden handcuffs. Intel works this way too. You get grants every quarter. Once you are past initial vetting, each quarter is another payday. Hard to walk away when it is "only 3 more months" to another hit.
almost_usual 8y ago
The decline is still manageable and Facebook could potentially bounce back. If stock prices continue to drop dramatically in the next year I'd expect employees to "cut their losses" and an exodus will happen. The gold mine will run dry.
dawhizkid 8y ago
According to this article (using LinkedIn data) the average tenure at FB is 2.5 years https://www.google.com/search?q=average+tenure+tech+companies&oq=average+tenure+tech+comp&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57.5350j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=average+tenure+tech+companie...
- tonfa 8y ago
  Is that tenure at the time where people leave, or avg tenure of current employees? (if the later it's expected to be short, given the 40% y/y growth).
LordHumungous 8y ago
That has to be pretty average for tech I'd guess.

Interesting that the employees reported that they expect to stay at FB for 4 more years.

by sjg007 8y ago

Interesting that the employees reported that they expect to stay at FB for 4 more years.

gammateam 8y ago

That's because long term investments are short term investments gone wrong.

discodave 8y ago
Warren Buffet would like a word with your investment strategy.
- astrange 8y ago
  Buffet’s not doing what you do. If you pay a liquidity premium, use it.
- gammateam 8y ago
  Warren Buffett engaged in highly speculative corporate raiding before it was even a term. Forget his Baby Boomer conservative investment guru facade. Thats not how he generated wealth, it is a component to how he preserves wealth because he has a liquidity issue.
  - shostack 8y ago
    Any recommended links to more reading on his early days with those tactics?
    - gammateam 8y ago
      No, not really, I'm more surprised anyone cares, in this context he is just a trader that does trader things, the luxury of maintaining polyamorous relationships with no challenge from his wife and social circle, accumulation with no interest in conspicuous consumption, insulation from financial consequence when relationships fall apart. It's just activist investing, read about that and maybe his name might come up. His switch to mild mannered thought leader is probably a story of redemption after corporate raiding caught on - in the pejorative - during the 80s.
      - mav3rick 8y ago
        Wow that's a new low. Bringing in his personal life to insult his professional life.
        gammateam 8y ago
        They weren't insults to me, I want those privileges too, he's very inspirational. It is surprising to me that people want a particular image of him, when I see the opposite of what he projects and I like it. I like the influence. I forgot other people hadn't seen it, but I am surprised how important his image is to people. I think these privileges are a part of his type-A trader life, and is par for course for successful traders living that life.
        mav3rick 8y ago
        Not every trader has an open relationship. You are just brushing people with a broad stroke. Buffet is his own individual who had his own arrangement with his family. You are insinuating that he's the same as all "traders" while also insinuating the things "traders" are notorious for. No one's perfect , but time and again Buffet has set a good example for principled investing. You allege that he took a wild swing and got lucky, but he follows what he learnt from Benjamin Graham and then invests. He's always done that. For the layman he suggests just resting and vesting in index funds which have time and again worked over a long period of time.
        gammateam 8y ago
        I don't consider his incongruence with a nuclear family to be an imperfection, I consider it privilege. I never said even said it was a lucky wild swing, there is no interpretation of what I said that meant that, your hyperbole is based on a completely wrong assumption of anything I care about it. Perhaps you decided to latch on to "highly speculative" as "wild swing and got lucky". Lets talk about the curve of risk, buying distressed companies after consolidating your friends and family's money with the addition of massive borrowing on top of that to accomplished your 'principled investing' would still be called highly speculative. This exists within the category of "highly speculative". There is nothing wrong with that? I find it entertaining that his approach to inspiring people is the exact opposite of risk, as he could easily just be another Carl Icahn or Soros if he wanted and only inspire finance majors to make massive bets against governments. He is so successful at this image that people would actually ask me to post a source for my allegations. This is obviously a lot more important to you than it is to me, and your cognitive dissonance is showing. This has been enlightening.
    - sjg007 8y ago
      Look into AmEx and the olive oil fiasco.
      - sobani 8y ago
        Wikipedia [0] doesn't mention Buffett in its description of the event. All I can find is a description of Buffett betting that AmEx would recover after this crisis. [1] That sounds in line with Buffett's reputation: bet on a good company that for whatever reason has a low price. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salad_Oil_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salad_Oil_scandal [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-and-the-great-salad-oil-swindle-2016-2?international=true&r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-and-the-great...

minimaxir 8y ago

Even with a stock decline, RSUs are hard to give up.

notyourday 8y ago
The real fun is going to start when there's going to be no chance for those that have started recently to be in the money on the options that they are getting. Those leaks would make Sandberg portrayal in "Chaos Monkeys" look like a glowy puff piece in Vogue.
- rconti 8y ago
  They don't get options, they get RSU grants.
  - evgen 8y ago
    RSUs still need to vest, and while you are not under water if the price drops you are definitely looking at a much smaller payoff for sticking around another year. The long tail of RSU payout over the vesting period also means that when things are going up you have an incentive to hang around because those early RSUs are paying off big, but if the price drops then there is really no incentive. The golden handcuffs are not a single RSU grant but the cumulative effects of several years of grants all slowly paying out -- a sagging price means that the big payoffs you were expecting from the tail end of early grants that have appreciated significantly are suddenly much smaller payoffs than you had been counting on. Yes, it is still a nice pile of money, but you had several years of watching it become a big pile of money and seeing it shrink makes you start to wonder if the grass is greener at places that are not as morally bankrupt...
snarf21 8y ago
The ole golden handcuffs. Intel works this way too. You get grants every quarter. Once you are past initial vetting, each quarter is another payday. Hard to walk away when it is "only 3 more months" to another hit.

almost_usual 8y ago

The decline is still manageable and Facebook could potentially bounce back. If stock prices continue to drop dramatically in the next year I'd expect employees to "cut their losses" and an exodus will happen. The gold mine will run dry.

dawhizkid 8y ago

According to this article (using LinkedIn data) the average tenure at FB is 2.5 years https://www.google.com/search?q=average+tenure+tech+companies&oq=average+tenure+tech+comp&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57.5350j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=average+tenure+tech+companie...

tonfa 8y ago
Is that tenure at the time where people leave, or avg tenure of current employees? (if the later it's expected to be short, given the 40% y/y growth).

LordHumungous 8y ago

That has to be pretty average for tech I'd guess.