5 ms·

Glad to see Google blowing everyone out of the water.

by TommyDANGerous 14y ago

vasco 14y ago
Actually Amazon and Yahoo and others have much more impressive "after 3 years" returns
- jashkenas 14y ago
  Note that, for better or for worse, relative performance after three years has a lot to do with how the tech market overall happened to be performing at that time. For example, the companies that I.P.O.'d in 1996 and 1997 tend to do well using this particular timeframe, and the ones that I.P.O.'d in 2006 would be affected negatively.
  - metamatt 14y ago
    Yup, it's just one metric, and "after 3 years" is pretty arbitrary. Still interesting if you keep this in mind. But I'd argue the most relevant time (for comparison of how well these companies built stable long-term value) is now, and it would be interesting to see numbers for % growth from IPO to now, or better yet, that measured per year (CAGR).
- ajross 14y ago
  Those are both terrible metrics. They're sensitive to IPO timing, for a start. Facebook is going public very (!) late, it's already achieved market dominance and very significant revenue. Contrast Microsoft, which went up before Windows 3.0, when they were mostly a software supplier to IBM (their other offerings were distant second place products to market leaders like Wordperfect or Lotus). And "after 3 years" misses a lot of detail too. Apple looks pretty good in that metric. But their "after 12 years" numbers are a disaster. And of course "after 30 years" looks to be pretty fantastic for them.
  - neilk 14y ago
    I'd just like to point out that you are chastising them for going public after obtaining reliable revenues for several years. This used to be the minimum requirement for going public.
    - ajross 14y ago
      Who's chastising anyone? All I said was that they were "late", which is undeniably true. And I tend to agree with you ethically, though that "used to be" leans heavily on "used". Since the PC revolution in the 80's, almost no tech companies have gone public with multi-year profitability.

Glad to see Google blowing everyone out of the water.

vasco 14y ago

Actually Amazon and Yahoo and others have much more impressive "after 3 years" returns

jashkenas 14y ago
Note that, for better or for worse, relative performance after three years has a lot to do with how the tech market overall happened to be performing at that time. For example, the companies that I.P.O.'d in 1996 and 1997 tend to do well using this particular timeframe, and the ones that I.P.O.'d in 2006 would be affected negatively.
- metamatt 14y ago
  Yup, it's just one metric, and "after 3 years" is pretty arbitrary. Still interesting if you keep this in mind. But I'd argue the most relevant time (for comparison of how well these companies built stable long-term value) is now, and it would be interesting to see numbers for % growth from IPO to now, or better yet, that measured per year (CAGR).
ajross 14y ago
Those are both terrible metrics. They're sensitive to IPO timing, for a start. Facebook is going public very (!) late, it's already achieved market dominance and very significant revenue. Contrast Microsoft, which went up before Windows 3.0, when they were mostly a software supplier to IBM (their other offerings were distant second place products to market leaders like Wordperfect or Lotus). And "after 3 years" misses a lot of detail too. Apple looks pretty good in that metric. But their "after 12 years" numbers are a disaster. And of course "after 30 years" looks to be pretty fantastic for them.
- neilk 14y ago
  I'd just like to point out that you are chastising them for going public after obtaining reliable revenues for several years. This used to be the minimum requirement for going public.
  - ajross 14y ago
    Who's chastising anyone? All I said was that they were "late", which is undeniably true. And I tend to agree with you ethically, though that "used to be" leans heavily on "used". Since the PC revolution in the 80's, almost no tech companies have gone public with multi-year profitability.