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We live in a strange time when a company that has successfully flown useful cargo into space on their own hardware has a valuation around 50% of the most popula

by habosa 12y ago

We live in a strange time when a company that has successfully flown useful cargo into space on their own hardware has a valuation around 50% of the most popular messaging app.

smackfu 12y ago
It's a lot harder to grow a hardware company. Especially if the market for your services is limited, so you need to develop new hardware (like the Falcon Heavy) in order to expand the market.
xux 12y ago
How is it strange? A service that's used by maybe <.00001% of the human population, compared to a service used by 500 million+ of the poorest population. How can they even compare?
hnnewguy 12y ago
>"We live in a strange time when a company that has successfully flown useful cargo into space on their own hardware has a valuation around 50%" We continue to live in a strange time where people speak of "deserved" valuations without ever talking about future potential profits, both for space companies and even messaging apps. Elsewhere in the comments, someone said that SpaceX will will simply "go public" to raise the money for Mars (sidenote: that must be an SV thing, to talk as if "going public" is like going to the ATM). Well, who in the public is going to invest without having some idea of what the business model here is, with a reasonable expectation of profits for the undertaken risk? Look, I'm fascinated by the work SpaceX is doing too, but I need something more concrete than a bunch of loose ideas ("Mine asteroids! Launch satellites!") before I'd turn over my money. It will probably (hopefully) happen eventually, but until then any valuation is meaningless, high or low.
edgyswingset 12y ago
Or a taxi company pretending to be a tech company taking advantage of known legal loopholes. How exactly is this not a bubble? Edit: Seems like folks still like Uber around here. Use the taxi service at its current costs while you can; it's not gonna stay that way.
krschultz 12y ago
Or to put it another way, we live in a relatively normal time, when a product used by a double digit percentage of every living human on the planet is worth more than a high capital expense gov't contractor. I love space, I love SpaceX in particular. That doesn't mean I think this valuation is out of whack. Facebook and Whatsapp have literally unprecedented reach. It's easy to hand wave off as 'just a messaging app', or 'just a social network', but we're talking about brands that achieved the global reach of Coca Cola in under 10 years. That's nothing to sneeze at. Meanwhile, SpaceX is making something roughly as technically difficult as stuff Boeing, Lockheed, General Dynamics are all doing. Should those companies be worth more?

by habosa 12y ago

We live in a strange time when a company that has successfully flown useful cargo into space on their own hardware has a valuation around 50% of the most popular messaging app.

smackfu 12y ago

It's a lot harder to grow a hardware company. Especially if the market for your services is limited, so you need to develop new hardware (like the Falcon Heavy) in order to expand the market.

xux 12y ago

How is it strange? A service that's used by maybe <.00001% of the human population, compared to a service used by 500 million+ of the poorest population. How can they even compare?

hnnewguy 12y ago

>"We live in a strange time when a company that has successfully flown useful cargo into space on their own hardware has a valuation around 50%" We continue to live in a strange time where people speak of "deserved" valuations without ever talking about future potential profits, both for space companies and even messaging apps. Elsewhere in the comments, someone said that SpaceX will will simply "go public" to raise the money for Mars (sidenote: that must be an SV thing, to talk as if "going public" is like going to the ATM). Well, who in the public is going to invest without having some idea of what the business model here is, with a reasonable expectation of profits for the undertaken risk? Look, I'm fascinated by the work SpaceX is doing too, but I need something more concrete than a bunch of loose ideas ("Mine asteroids! Launch satellites!") before I'd turn over my money. It will probably (hopefully) happen eventually, but until then any valuation is meaningless, high or low.

edgyswingset 12y ago

Or a taxi company pretending to be a tech company taking advantage of known legal loopholes. How exactly is this not a bubble? Edit: Seems like folks still like Uber around here. Use the taxi service at its current costs while you can; it's not gonna stay that way.

krschultz 12y ago

Or to put it another way, we live in a relatively normal time, when a product used by a double digit percentage of every living human on the planet is worth more than a high capital expense gov't contractor. I love space, I love SpaceX in particular. That doesn't mean I think this valuation is out of whack. Facebook and Whatsapp have literally unprecedented reach. It's easy to hand wave off as 'just a messaging app', or 'just a social network', but we're talking about brands that achieved the global reach of Coca Cola in under 10 years. That's nothing to sneeze at. Meanwhile, SpaceX is making something roughly as technically difficult as stuff Boeing, Lockheed, General Dynamics are all doing. Should those companies be worth more?