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Meta Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Results
- paulpauper 3y agowtf..up 11% in AH to $440. Which is on top of 300% gains from 2022 lows. Those YouTube Meta obituaries were the worst possible timing ever. (Looking at you Coldfusion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_i1alH5TrA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_i1alH5TrA ) It goes to show how just because something appears overbought does not mean it cannot keep going higher Meta firing on all cylinders: Near-total dominance of social networking, chat, mobile ads, and now AI. Those mobile ads are so expensive, and multinationals and other large companies spending so much $ on clicks and impressions. High inflation pure top line growth. Crazy. It's hard to find a company that that is in a better position than Meta now. Maybe Nvidia.
- ThalesX 3y agoIn all honestly, I recently launched two campaigns. One on Meta and one on Google. It's for a niche app I worked on as part of a European Project. Meta went straight up and is giving me good traffic. Google keeps refusing it saying the messaging is unclear. I've been trying for a week to update the messaging and description to make it 'clearer', and they keep rejecting it. After yesterday I gave up on Google, I have no idea what they mean and what they want.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 3y agoI got banned for basically life from Google adwords after I messed up some sort of payment configuration. Literally used an expired credit card on accident/something like that. Instant ban with no communication
- dchftcs 3y agoAmazon burns and churns through employees, Google burns and churns through paying customers. Guess which one holds better in a bad labor market.
- nick222226 3y agoSame experience trying to advertise an Airbnb. Went round and round with a Google ad "support consultant" as they messed up our campaign multiple times, meanwhile happily spending hundreds and getting ROI for it on Instagram.
- threeseed 3y ago> Went round and round with a Google ad "support consultant" Apparently those in the industry know all about them and advise their clients to stay away from them. Like you I wish I knew this before they ruined our account so bad we needed to start a new pixel with an agency.
- rsync 3y agoWait, what ? There are ads on Airbnb? As in, I am looking for a place to stay and there are ads shown to me? I use Airbnb but I also use ublock so … I would otherwise see ads?
- gretch 3y agodisclosure: am investor It's one of those stocks that people love to emotionally say is "over" without quantification. And very loose analysis like "I don't use facebook.com anymore" or "metaverse VR is not good". I personally love the cycles of discount every 3-5 years when the new outrage happens, and just look at the fundamental numbers on the business before buying a few more shares. Btw, not sure who Coldfusion is, but looks like they got 1.7M views on that video. So however "bad" the analysis is, it sure looks like a good way for him to make money.
- paulpauper 3y agoClickbait = more views and revenue for video creator. Bad investment advice for everyone else.
- TacticalCoder 3y ago> It's hard to find a company that that is in a better position than Meta now. Meta has no browser. No mobile phone OS. No big email userbase (where the valuable business stuff is sent, not the "zomg lulz cats pictures"). I think Apple, Microsoft and Google are all way better positioned than Meta. > Near-total dominance of social networking, chat, mobile ads, and now AI. Social networking, OK. Although LinkedIn is MS and, once again, that's where the real juicy stuff is. Mobile ads: dunno, maybe. But around me everybody has Telegram (EU here and it's not the first country in the EU where I notice that). Telegram is growing quickly: 800 MAU. AI: I know Meta just ordered a shitload of big stuff from NVidia, for billions and billions... But it seems to me OpenAI is still ahead. Is Meta even ahead of Mistral/Mixtral? (a tiny company with a mere 300 million EUR in funding). That said I did buy Meta at around $100 when the tech crash happened. I hate Meta, but now the Zuck is working for me ; )
- ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago[flagged]
- sackfield 3y agoIt's refreshing to hear this, I've always been a bit confused that people look down on Meta with disdain. They are doing stellar open source work, I use their frameworks/libraries all the time, there is lots to be thankful for. In regards to 1, its notable they weren't involved in the anti-poaching lawsuit: https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/apple-google-others-settle-anti-poaching-lawsuit-for-415-million/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/apple-google-others-... That's not too say I'm a sycophant, just that the level hate they get seems ungrounded.
- barbazoo 3y agoThe hate they get from a lot of people has nothing to do with their contributions to OSS but their negative impact on big parts of our society.
- KptMarchewa 3y agoThey were very small by the time of that anti poaching agreement.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y agoI've always liked Zuck and his orgs but not necessarily any of their products.
- BhavdeepSethi 3y agoI swear I saw this exact post before. Looks like I wasn't wrong: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=39048070&goto=item%3Fid%3D39045153%2339048070 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=39048070&goto=item%3Fi...
- mensetmanusman 3y agoSo it's MZ?!
- sharkweek 3y agoI started joking with a friend when it hit $300-ish a share in this recent run-up like "wow imagine if we had invested when it dropped to $100 we'd be RIIIICH!!" Now it's up another 50% since we started joking about that so... Realistically, I'm much more attached to slow and steady index investing but FB stock is one I always like to follow along with and I (mostly jokingly) kick myself for not having the foresight when everyone was claiming doom and gloom a year ago that "nah, there's a cockroach (in the survivalist way, not to sound insulting) here..." Advertisers have like 2.5 places to put their money right now, and FB is one of them.
- paulpauper 3y agoYup. Meta's properties have near-dominance of the web, save for Google. This is why you have to sometimes hold your nose and buy. The rational part of your brain says "it is overextended" . Yes, but a lot of great investments seem that way, like Nvidia or Microsoft. The Metaverse losses were bad but only temporary, but the media narrative was that it would doom Meta.
- technotony 3y agoWe're an 8 digit ARR DTC brand, not suprised at these results. After the apple/facebook tracking issues we took our spend down to zero as it wasn't working. Facebook has fixed their alogorithms though and full credit to them our spend is working again and they are back to getting the lion share of our spend. Full credit to them!
- zmmmmm 3y ago> Revenue was $40.11 billion and $134.90 billion, an increase of 25% and 16% year-over-year for the fourth quarter and full year 2023, respectively > Facebook daily active users (DAUs) – DAUs were 2.11 billion on average for December 2023, an increase of 6% year-over-year Incomprehensible numbers ...
- yodsanklai 3y agoThat seems extremely high for quite a boring service indeed. But it's also a global service so people in different countries may have a different experience. Nowadays, Facebook provides no value to me. I don't like it. Still, I probably check it a few times a day when I'm procrastinating. I read the updates of the few acquaintances that still post on it. And I'm tricked into watching a few reels. A few groups are also interesting. Ironically, I found their ads to be quite relevant. They went from boring t-shirts and gadgets to things that I could actually be interested in.
- higgins 3y agoI know it says "Facebook daily active users (DAUs)" but I'm not sure why it wouldn't include the "Family of apps", ie Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, etc
- lurker919 3y agoI live in the US. FB Groups have really become useful over the last 1-2 years. Very useful for connecting with local musicians, planning trips around concerts, discussing immigration related worries and making fun of soccer players. Feels like it's basically becoming an easier-to-use reddit. Also, unrelated I've started seeing erotic content on suggested reels. These low-quality videos have hundreds of comments and millions of views. All contributing to fb usage.
- ryandrake 3y agoFacebook has been my "Oh my god, I'm an out of touch old man" warning message. I honestly don't understand Facebook and Instagram and the rest of their products. I don't use them and I don't know why I'd use them. I truly don't understand what people get out of them. Yet the numbers can't be denied. Over 2 billion active daily. As OP put it, it's totally incomprehensible! Well done.
- threeseed 3y agoMeta always likes to play the victim card about the effect of Apple's anti-tracking measures but it's ended up being a win for them. Companies have been moving to server side conversion tracking and browser fingerprinting which actually improves the ad targeting. Also it's helped build a moat that is making life harder for smaller ad players to compete. Also Threads has been a massive score for them. It's allowed Instagram to focus on Reels to compete with TikTok and fed in a ton of new behavioural attributes. Plus ad spend amongst large brands surely must have moved to Meta after leaving Twitter/X. It's just amazing how things have turned around for Zuck during the last year.
- baxtr 3y agoSo Threads is basically the old insta for pictures now?
- threeseed 3y agoInstagram is half-images/half-video and Threads is half-images/half-text. And yeah all of the popular photographers were on Threads from the beginning since photo carousel support was one of the first features that was implemented.
- baxtr 3y agoNice explanation!
- wkat4242 3y agoInsta is only half video since a year because they crammed in this reel nonsense to try and out-tiktok TikTok. And fail. I don't want a "for you" feed and I don't want reels but they keep sticking them in my face. And everyone is now posting photos as video because the algorithm favours it.
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- yodsanklai 3y agoImagine those employees who got hired with $1M of RSU when the stock was $90.
- IshKebab 3y agoYeah now they're even more still rich!
- vrc 3y agoI was hired at $300+, weeks before the plunge. It wasn’t fun realizing that pushing my start date would have pushed the issuance to the lower price.
- paulpauper 3y agoyeah, puts crypto gains to shame
- dnissley 3y agoThat was when the company was rescinding previous offers and laying off newish employees -- so there aren't a whole lot who stuck around long enough to reap the rewards.
- mandeepj 3y agoRecruiting does not update their stock that often especially when it’s on a tear. Also, they assign RSUs based on projections, not current value
- Analog24 3y agoThat's not true at all. At Meta your RSUs are based off the average share price for the month before your start date
- melling 3y agoMeta is a good opportunity learn that a good time to buy is when people really dump on a company. Jim Cramer, many people on HN, … In Oct 2022, I was jumping up and down saying “the P/E is 9!” People just hating on Zuckerberg. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33366322 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33366322
- ChatGTP 3y agoIt's true, but I think it will sink again and many will be left holding the bag after buying the hype. I don't see what they've really done differently in the last 6-12 to be really honest. Maybe "AI" will save the Metaverse is about all I've heard? There's nothing much else going on social media wise so it will be a safe bet, but why should it maintain that price forever ?
- _heimdall 3y agoI've always been a fan of the "do the opposite of what Jim Cramer says" method for investing.
- davidjfelix 3y agoThey had an ETF that did this called SJIM but just announced it's closing: https://www.etf.com/sections/news/inverse-jim-cramer-etf-shuttered https://www.etf.com/sections/news/inverse-jim-cramer-etf-shu...
- khuey 3y agoSomebody made an ETF of that but it doesn't perform that well. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/SJIM/ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/SJIM/
- woobar 3y agoThis is a popular conversation topic, but not a great investment strategy. https://www.crameretfs.com/ https://www.crameretfs.com/
- dangerboysteve 3y agoit's referred to as Inverse Cramer
- jmull 3y agoDahy-um. That's some real money and margins. Just listening to the chatter -- posts, new stories, etc., I was kind of expecting to see some kind of meta doom. But they are rolling in dough. It's just pumping in. I'm pretty skeptical of their metaverse ambitions, but it doesn't seem like it's going to be tanking the company. More like a really fun diversion to pass the time while the money pours in.
- bko 3y agoCrazy numbers. Still can't believe Facebook is growing daily and monthly users for the last 15 years. Its low to mid single digits but still. Headcount down 22% you while expenses slightly up you (1%) Looks like money going into R&D and maybe salaries?
- samspenc 3y agoLikely CapEx spend on GPU for AI training, similar to what all other FAANG companies are doing now (esp Microsoft and Google, along with Meta). Mark did announce a few weeks ago they would be buying 600K worth of H100-equivalent GPUs, that's a few billion in CapEx.
- HDThoreaun 3y agoFacebook growing users still is easily the most mind boggling thing in tech right now to me. I was absolutely convinced it would plateau like 5 years ago but they just keep finding more people to download their app. Theyre claiming that half the world uses their apps at least once a month, hard for me to wrap my head around that.
- yuliyp 3y ago> we anticipate growth in payroll expenses as we work down our current hiring underrun and add incremental talent to support priority areas in 2024, which we expect will further shift our workforce composition toward higher-cost technical roles. Sounds like a company that really needed to reduce its workforce to achieve greater efficiency. It's totally not because they wanted to fire people without firing people. Nope.
- dnissley 3y agoFiring people without firing people? You are aware of the two major rounds of layoffs during the previous two years? Both of which came with extremely generous severance?
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- yuliyp 3y agoYes I was referring those rounds of layoffs. A generous severance isn't a job. Nor does it allow those on work-visas to remain.
- dnissley 3y agoSure but saying they were "fired without being fired" implies that the company did some kind of covert layoff through underhanded means, e.g. giving people low performance reviews in order to get them to quit, or forcing designated WFH employees to come back to the office or be fired, etc.
- EgregiousCube 3y agoClosing some positions doesn't imply that one should stop hiring for those that remain open and unfilled. What sinister motive are you implying?
- zmmmmm 3y agoit's exactly what Zuckerberg said right at the start - they want more engineers and less managers / other support roles. There are fewer engineers but they cost more.
- rvz 3y agoOnce again, It is now clear that the death of Meta Platforms Inc. was totally exaggerated and almost no-one bought the stock when it crashed to $89 when everyone was screaming that 'it was dying'. It is just business as usual. [0][1] and up 300%+ since ignoring the widespread FUD and buying the stock at $89 - $90. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31832439 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31832439 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32256465 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32256465
- paulpauper 3y agoSame here. Meta staged probably the greatest corporate recovery ever. $1 trillion of market capitalization created in a single year. The metaverse losses were bad, yes, but were not going to sink the business.
- silverkite 3y ago>100% increase in operating margin from 22 to 23, not bad
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- mattbrewsbytes 3y agoContrast that with on the news the other night they had a clip of Zuck at a Senate hearing addressing the parents behind him that all had lost a child to suicide from social media bullying. Also during the hearing he would quote about how there isn't conclusive causal with social media use in kids causing mental health issues. $134 Billion in revenue in 2023. They can pay off anyone, legally via lobbying, and subvert any studies or content from gaining traction on their platforms that would hurt their bottom line.
- ChatGTP 3y agoRemember when Meta was dead a year or so ago ? lol
- pellucide 3y agoAbout a decade ago, when facebook(after IPOing at 38) came down to 20, I was in a bus speaking with a friend about buying a bit and holding it forever(like Buffet). He laughed at me. A lot of folks in the bus gave me strange looks. So far it has been the best decision(investment wise) for me. The only effort I did was to read their IPO prospectus and the latest 10q(at that time).
- paulpauper 3y agoI have been following Meta/Facebook since 2008 when that story broke of Microsoft's initial investment. Long-time investor.
- tdullien 3y agoIn 2011 after selling my company to Goog a salesperson from Goldman called me trying to sell me pre IPO Facebook stock. I told him I think FB is s fad, and given that he works for Goldman, they wouldn't sell it if they thought it had value. I was not a good investor back then.
- dangerboysteve 3y agoWhile, credit is due to Zuck and his team. Much of the turnaround was due to investor pressure to shrink the headcount dramatically and take the foot off the gas for VR.
- sakopov 3y agoBig tech moves like crypto. This stock market volatility is absolutely insane. I wonder if we ever go back to pre-covid times when the market didn't run up and crash every 3 months.
- HDThoreaun 3y agoInteresting that they started a dividend. Facebook has been doing heavy buybacks for a while now. Wonder why they started a dividend instead of plowing more into buybacks. Perhaps Mark wanted some cash without selling and disliked the current interest rates? Im reading he has 350 million shares so this is a 175 mil payout for him.
- ahahahahah 3y agoThey also got approval for another $50b in buybacks. They're just using multiple avenues of getting money back to investors.
- saos 3y agoLayoff employeees and reward shareholders with dividends!
- TradingPlaces 3y agoAll they did was put more ads in the feed.
- screye 3y agoEarly in 2023, I decided to do stock picking for the first time. I thought 3 stocks were underrated - Intel, amd and meta. But the responsible investor that I was, I put in no more than a few thousand in each. On one hand, I'm really glad to see how well that panned out. On the other hand, really kicking myself for not having more confidence in my own intuitions. Big percent on a low base feels like a pyrric victory.
- unbalancedevh 3y agoYou made the best decision you could at the time, and the outcome was a best-case scenario! That's a real victory.