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Priceline now worth $100B

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Re: Priceline now worth $100B

#181

Post by eecc »

bryanculver wrote: post #97
wheaties wrote: post #16

This is stupid. Really. Here we are in a world where the companies that own the assets (you know, the things that cost a lot of money) are worth less than the things that don't own anything. This doesn't seem "right" or "fair" in the sense that Priceline should be a middleman, unable to exercise any or all pricing power because it does not control the assets producing the revenue. I wonder how long this can last?

While I don't completely disagree with you in the large discrepancy between the two, I believe it's a gross over-simplification to state Priceline owns nothing. In the same over-simplification you could state that newspapers are worthless as a middleman to the actual events that happen. However what you are actually accessing is talent, resources, and services to compile that list of recent events every day (or in th…

It's a market. Difficult to find in the ocean of more or less poor sites...

Re: Priceline now worth $100B

#182

Post by petra »

fitchjo wrote: post #163
anigbrowl wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brands have no inherent value though; they're the consumer equivalent of religious icons. They cease to have meaning if they're not kept alive by advertising and can be destroyed by a single screw up or undermined by a clever emme. Marketing people sell value, they don't create it.

In the eyes of who? To the company and its owners, if my brand allows me to sell an equivalent widget for a higher margin, how is that not value? Just because value can be created or destroyed by a single action doesn't mean that value is somehow less valuable. To the user, if I derive greater pleasure because I believe I have bought a more valuable product (attributable only to the brand), just because there is an e…

Maybe brands could be tied to momentarily moments of happiness for some people. But the modern branding and marketing, but also mass media, is a pretty bad environment to grow a child, to be a female, and for people and societies in general. So i highly doubt the positive value of marketing.

But sure, they do help extract higher margins.

Re: Priceline now worth $100B

#183

Post by flinty »

raugustinus wrote: post #124
scottLobster wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should also be wondering about the lack of incentive to be a producer/owner when being a middleman is so comparatively lucrative. If capital and talent starts shifting to middlemen in pursuit of higher returns it could cause a lot of markets to stagnate with only the big players having the resources to make a profit off of producing.

Thank you for this interesting thought. My first thought was this. Why wouldn't I make furniture and sell directly to customers. Which is something I've been thinking of doing. One problem is that the computer desks I'm thinking about might not be what people want. Why? They will be expensive and it seems like the whole world thinks the IKEA desks are what they really want/need. Check some YouTube tech reviewers, the…

yep, marketing turns a commodity into something cherished and desired. Literally everything is a commodity unless marketing has put gloss on it

Re: Priceline now worth $100B

#184

Post by dopamean »

sAbakumoff wrote: post #150
dopamean wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience in tech (only a few years, I came from finance, and before that construction, weirdly) people are super cynical and often believe that they know more about _any_ business because they can write some code or something similar. I have never been around more people who consistently think they know better than everyone else. This was a surprising thing for me because I assumed engineers would be more cur…

yes, indeed all the techies are the same and consistently think they know better. Keep labeling people, MR. Finance-Constructor, it's the sure way to the success.

I'm not sure that's what I said at all but I'm sorry if that is what was communicated. It was not my intention.

Re: Priceline now worth $100B

#185

Post by AndrewKemendo »

anigbrowl wrote: post #144
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the things that don't own anything Not true at all, they own the attention of people who would be paying the asset holders. That is (obviously) very valuable.

No they don't. That's not fungible, tangible, or reliable. In the zero-sum world we're heading towards right now, where normal institutional procedures are in abeyance, expect brands to topple like dominos. Remember that salmonella outbreak that killed all those people.

abeyance

Great word, hadn't heard that before (or at least forgot it).

Also, Coca-Cola, Nike etc... would disagree with the idea that brands don't last.

Re: Priceline now worth $100B

#186

Post by dopamean »

camhenlin wrote: post #174
dopamean wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience in tech (only a few years, I came from finance, and before that construction, weirdly) people are super cynical and often believe that they know more about _any_ business because they can write some code or something similar. I have never been around more people who consistently think they know better than everyone else. This was a surprising thing for me because I assumed engineers would be more cur…

Seasoned programmers who have worked on software across several industries are probably pretty good at understanding and translating day to day business tasks into automated code. To do that you almost have to understand a business inside and out. That's their job. If more people were humble, less would get done

That make's plenty of sense but I have a hard time believing that so many of the commenters here have the experience you just described. I know it is certainly not true of the people I interact with offline on a regular basis.

Also, I'm not sure I really buy the argument that because you can automate some "day to day business tasks" means you know better about how a business should be run. Automating a process that already exists is not the same as deciding which processes need to exist and which don't. Certainly, there are people who can both but I'd be lying if I said any significant number of engineers I know could really do both.

Re: Priceline now worth $100B

#187

Post by strgcmc »

wheaties wrote: post #16

This is stupid. Really. Here we are in a world where the companies that own the assets (you know, the things that cost a lot of money) are worth less than the things that don't own anything. This doesn't seem "right" or "fair" in the sense that Priceline should be a middleman, unable to exercise any or all pricing power because it does not control the assets producing the revenue. I wonder how long this can last?

"Worth" in the case of stock market cap is a direct reflection of perceived current and future profitability. It is not just a simple summing of assets minus debts = net worth. In fact, the thing you're talking about is simply comparing apples to oranges.

This is like being surprised that corporations have a higher market cap than the sum of the net worths of its employees; it's not really a sensible thing to compare.

Re: Priceline now worth $100B

#188

Post by smcl »

tlogan wrote: post #177
dopamean wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience in tech (only a few years, I came from finance, and before that construction, weirdly) people are super cynical and often believe that they know more about _any_ business because they can write some code or something similar. I have never been around more people who consistently think they know better than everyone else. This was a surprising thing for me because I assumed engineers would be more cur…

No - it is just about age. HN readers are younger thus they think they know more. Old people will just say: "I don't know about that" [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvT_gqs5ETk

I would've thought it's more that HN'ers tend to have first or second hand experience tech boom/busts, and each subsequent sky-high validation brings back memories and feelings that are hard to ignore

Re: Priceline now worth $100B

#189

Post by trhway »

dopamean wrote: post #141
misterbwong wrote: post #112

If you were to tell a non-HNer that Kayak, Booking, Priceline, CheapFlights, OpenTable, and other large websites are worth 100B combined , I don't think they would even blink an eye. Come here and the top discussion thread is about how little Priceline does, how they're "just middlemen", and that they don't add any value. It's clear that HN (and techies as a whole, I assume) highly discounts the value of users, marke…

In my experience in tech (only a few years, I came from finance, and before that construction, weirdly) people are super cynical and often believe that they know more about _any_ business because they can write some code or something similar. I have never been around more people who consistently think they know better than everyone else. This was a surprising thing for me because I assumed engineers would be more cur…

the other side of the same coin is fresh perspective and unbiased application of engineering approach to any problem which results in disruption when it works. Sometimes it doesn't work, e.g. Theranos and others. Money made when it works keeps everybody as believers in that "church of disruption".
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