5 ms·

Only $50B? Facebook Stock Is Still a Steal

13 points by rblion 16y ago

jdp23 16y ago
"I don’t have any inside information about Facebook’s finances, and I’m not a Goldman client. But I’m convinced that when we look back at this investment, it will rank as one of the best stock opportunities available today — akin to buying Apple stock just before the release of the iPod.... Disclosure: Ethan has a very small position in a Facebook secondary vehicle, purchased in 2010." Oh, well, at least it's an expert opinion from somebody who has no stake in the matter.
- damoncali 16y ago
  Who says journalism is dead?
- trotsky 16y ago
  it will rank as one of the best stock opportunities available today — akin to buying Apple stock just before the release of the iPod Just for laughs: AAPL in 2001: ~$25 per share AAPL today: $350 per share Increase in value: 1400% Facebook market cap today: $50B Ethan's projected facebook market cap: $700B Current largest US public company in market cap: XOM @ $380B So yeah, he's only projecting facebook to become twice as valuable as the most valuable US company is currently.
beoba 16y ago
The new decade's version of http://www.amazon.com/dp/0735201374/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0735201374/
patrickgzill 16y ago
Attempt to provide an alternate POV: "The truly staggering valuation of $50 billion that Goldman Sachs has placed on Facebook, the Internet social networking website is significantly higher than the estimated $30 billion value of silver held in [all] the vaults of the world." http://news.silverseek.com/SilverSeek/1294236772.php http://news.silverseek.com/SilverSeek/1294236772.php
- paulbaumgart 16y ago
  I really don't understand how the price of silver is related to Facebook's valuation.
  - artpop 16y ago
    All of the world's silver is supposedly worth less than a shitty social networking site...
    - colinplamondon 16y ago
      I decided to go to Medellin for NYE, and then work from Bogota for a few weeks to get away from the Boston cold. Guess how Colombians all stay in contact? Facebook. No one here knows what IM is. They just know Facebook Chat and MSN. The scale of Facebook's domination among under 30's is massive, and global. Nothing shitty about it.
    - tptacek 16y ago
      I'd like to sell you some silver. Let's get on the phone soon.
  - patrickgzill 16y ago
    It is an attempt to provide perspective. Silver has many industrial and high-tech uses; Facebook is basically MySpace 2.0.
    - tptacek 16y ago
      The value of silver fluctuates. If you cornered the world's silver market, it would get a lot pricier. But right now, anyone who charged you for silver at some hypothetical Facebook-parity valuation would get their lunch eaten by everyone else who will sell you silver at its market price. Facebook, on the other hand, is not substitutable. There exists no comparable social network (with a comparable number of active users) from which you can buy targeted ads, or game users, or whatever other product Facebook launches down the road.
yanowitz 16y ago
Facebook has yet to really monetize it's 500mm users. Example: in just a couple of years from when it chose to, it can eviscerate a $37 billion company: eBay. Hell, it could do it as a hobby at first. Then it can start to make real money. Imagine reputation based on your social graph, auction ads/placement based on all the fine grained data they have (and then once they have data on your past purchasing interest/decisions...), etc...
- decadentcactus 16y ago
  I see things like what you say, that "they just need to start trying" and it makes it seem like if I said "I could just start training to be an athlete, and in a couple of years I'd probably win [whatever]". They haven't really done anything until they actually... do something.
p90x 16y ago
I'm wondering if equity markets are near some kind of top. The things that make me thing that are facebook private placement, talk about a facebook IPO, Li Ka-shing doing an IPO of his Chinese property development company. They all seem to be cashing out.
- jdp23 16y ago
  hmm ... it's almost like it's a bubble or something ...
TomOfTTB 16y ago
While all the sarcastic responses are funny there is a serious point here. If you're a technology VC you get a skewed view of the world because... 1. Everyone you interact with (Entrepreneurs, Journalists, Fellow VCs, etc...) is crazy for Social Networking which makes them very active. 2. You see abstract statistics like "55% of all adults over 12 use Facebook" or "73% of all U.S. Internet users are on Facebook" These two facts lead you to believe Facebook is this massive, unstoppable movement that will rule the world. But in my experience (as a passive Facebook user myself) only about 10% of the people I've friended on Facebook actively post material on a regular basis (maybe a little higher if you count status updates alone as activity). I saw this same thing when I worked in the Valley at the very end of the 90s. The people there thought ideas like Webvan and the original Pets.com were genius because everyone they knew wanted to do all their shopping online. Only after those startups failed did we realize the rest of the world wasn't as enamored as we were.

13 points by rblion 16y ago

jdp23 16y ago

"I don’t have any inside information about Facebook’s finances, and I’m not a Goldman client. But I’m convinced that when we look back at this investment, it will rank as one of the best stock opportunities available today — akin to buying Apple stock just before the release of the iPod.... Disclosure: Ethan has a very small position in a Facebook secondary vehicle, purchased in 2010." Oh, well, at least it's an expert opinion from somebody who has no stake in the matter.

damoncali 16y ago
Who says journalism is dead?
trotsky 16y ago
it will rank as one of the best stock opportunities available today — akin to buying Apple stock just before the release of the iPod Just for laughs: AAPL in 2001: ~$25 per share AAPL today: $350 per share Increase in value: 1400% Facebook market cap today: $50B Ethan's projected facebook market cap: $700B Current largest US public company in market cap: XOM @ $380B So yeah, he's only projecting facebook to become twice as valuable as the most valuable US company is currently.

beoba 16y ago

The new decade's version of http://www.amazon.com/dp/0735201374/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0735201374/

patrickgzill 16y ago

Attempt to provide an alternate POV: "The truly staggering valuation of $50 billion that Goldman Sachs has placed on Facebook, the Internet social networking website is significantly higher than the estimated $30 billion value of silver held in [all] the vaults of the world." http://news.silverseek.com/SilverSeek/1294236772.php http://news.silverseek.com/SilverSeek/1294236772.php

paulbaumgart 16y ago
I really don't understand how the price of silver is related to Facebook's valuation.
- artpop 16y ago
  All of the world's silver is supposedly worth less than a shitty social networking site...
  - colinplamondon 16y ago
    I decided to go to Medellin for NYE, and then work from Bogota for a few weeks to get away from the Boston cold. Guess how Colombians all stay in contact? Facebook. No one here knows what IM is. They just know Facebook Chat and MSN. The scale of Facebook's domination among under 30's is massive, and global. Nothing shitty about it.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    I'd like to sell you some silver. Let's get on the phone soon.
- patrickgzill 16y ago
  It is an attempt to provide perspective. Silver has many industrial and high-tech uses; Facebook is basically MySpace 2.0.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    The value of silver fluctuates. If you cornered the world's silver market, it would get a lot pricier. But right now, anyone who charged you for silver at some hypothetical Facebook-parity valuation would get their lunch eaten by everyone else who will sell you silver at its market price. Facebook, on the other hand, is not substitutable. There exists no comparable social network (with a comparable number of active users) from which you can buy targeted ads, or game users, or whatever other product Facebook launches down the road.

yanowitz 16y ago

Facebook has yet to really monetize it's 500mm users. Example: in just a couple of years from when it chose to, it can eviscerate a $37 billion company: eBay. Hell, it could do it as a hobby at first. Then it can start to make real money. Imagine reputation based on your social graph, auction ads/placement based on all the fine grained data they have (and then once they have data on your past purchasing interest/decisions...), etc...

decadentcactus 16y ago
I see things like what you say, that "they just need to start trying" and it makes it seem like if I said "I could just start training to be an athlete, and in a couple of years I'd probably win [whatever]". They haven't really done anything until they actually... do something.

p90x 16y ago

I'm wondering if equity markets are near some kind of top. The things that make me thing that are facebook private placement, talk about a facebook IPO, Li Ka-shing doing an IPO of his Chinese property development company. They all seem to be cashing out.

jdp23 16y ago
hmm ... it's almost like it's a bubble or something ...

TomOfTTB 16y ago

While all the sarcastic responses are funny there is a serious point here. If you're a technology VC you get a skewed view of the world because... 1. Everyone you interact with (Entrepreneurs, Journalists, Fellow VCs, etc...) is crazy for Social Networking which makes them very active. 2. You see abstract statistics like "55% of all adults over 12 use Facebook" or "73% of all U.S. Internet users are on Facebook" These two facts lead you to believe Facebook is this massive, unstoppable movement that will rule the world. But in my experience (as a passive Facebook user myself) only about 10% of the people I've friended on Facebook actively post material on a regular basis (maybe a little higher if you count status updates alone as activity). I saw this same thing when I worked in the Valley at the very end of the 90s. The people there thought ideas like Webvan and the original Pets.com were genius because everyone they knew wanted to do all their shopping online. Only after those startups failed did we realize the rest of the world wasn't as enamored as we were.