3 ms·
Ask HN: Is $1.86 billion in revenue enough to keep Facebook viable?
This seems like a really low number considering they have 500M "customers". I assume they're making a bit more than $2/person on the site (profit)...how can they possibly be worth $50 Billion?!
- il 16y agoTheir users are not their customers, their advertisers are. Considering the low conversion rates of Facebook traffic, that seems just right.
- lazylazylazy 16y agoSpeculation on the future. They have more data on you than anyone has had, ever. And, they are attracting the smartest people on earth. With those two things combined, they are going to be able to do a lot more than display Ads based on your listed interests and relationship status. Think: modeling a marketing scheme against FB's data because they understand the idiosyncratic specifics of the demographic you are trying to hit, thus telling you with p<.01 whether or not it will be profitable. That, and government contracts are profitable.
- deafcheese 16y agoWhat you're describing reminds me of a company I stumbled on a while ago - Recorded Future.
- codelust 16y agoWithout knowing the actual details of their financials, it is always going to be blind speculation. Also, 'viable' would mean different things in different contexts. I think it is certainly viable for the current investors to exit with a good return on their investment if the company goes public. For the company itself, it can be a different story and we need more information to comment on that.
- Zakuzaa 16y agoNon-Paying Users = Product Advertisers = Customers Their valuation is based on potential, not just the current revenues.