ByteDance investors value TikTok at $50B in takeover bid • Hacker News Board

Re: ByteDance investors value TikTok at $50B in takeover bid

#131

Post by fokinsean » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 5:27 PM UTC

paulpan wrote: post #117

It's sort to sad to see TikTok being forcibly sold off due to geopolitical factors, rather than on more business ones (e.g. competitiveness). Despite the controversy with its personal data leakage, TikTok has been massively successful and put the established players like Facebook, Twitter and even YouTube on alert. Competition forces companies to improve and just as we need Android to hold iOS accountable, etc TikTok…

> due to geopolitical factors

They kind of dug themselves in hole with how sketchy the app is

Re: ByteDance investors value TikTok at $50B in takeover bid

#132

Post by samfisher83 » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

paulpauper wrote: post #53

alehul wrote: post #14

Many are suggesting that TikTok would be overvalued at $50B. If that's the case, do you believe FB is overvalued at $662B? Instagram, as of 2018, was estimated to be worth around $100B on its own (with about 1b MAUs, versus TikTok's 800m). TikTok seems at least equally addictive, and its algorithm does a fantastic job at quickly showing good content that matches your interests.

At this point, give how wrong over the past decade pundits have been about Tesla, Uber, Facebook, Shopify, Amazon (and many others), I am inclined to discount/ignore any prediction of a rapidly-growing consumer tech or app company being a bubble. These pundits have a horrible track record of predicting this sort of stuff. A common thread for why these forecasts tend to be so bad is, such pundits ignore the growth of…

Please don't don't put facebook in the same category as Tesla, uber, shopify, etc. They generate an enormous amount of free cash flow. Without AWS even Amazon isn't generating much free cash flow.

Re: ByteDance investors value TikTok at $50B in takeover bid

#133

Post by askafriend » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

cosmodisk wrote: post #107

paulpauper wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

look at all the articles since 2010 or so about Amazon and Tesla being bubbles. Or before that, articles in 2007-2010 about Facebook being Myspace. Or about Uber dying due to debt (this was in 2014-2016). These are the companies pundits write the most about ,and have been wrong. Yeah, many unicorns do fail or get acquired for sub-billion, but pundits seldom if ever write about them, except when they fail. The media w…

Tesla will carry on for the next few years,until all the major manufacturers will get to the point,where making electric becomes a new norm. At that point Tesla may become no more than Dachia or Kia.

And when that doesn't happen, you'll come up with your next theory. The goal posts will keep moving until one day you'll run out of things to say and the company is a behemoth capturing a percentage of all car sales (not just electric).

That's been the dynamic with Tesla since the company was started.

Re: ByteDance investors value TikTok at $50B in takeover bid

#134

Post by askafriend » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

zippy5 wrote: post #59

alehul wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good question - TikTok generated $176.9m revenue in 2019, but it's still in its infancy in terms of generating revenue. Instagram, acquired for $1b in 2012, had $0 revenue. WhatsApp, acquired for $19b in 2014, had $10.2m revenue. Based on TikTok's usage-per-day and active users being comparable to Instagram, they could presumably generate ~similar revenue if focused on it. With these types of apps, growth comes first…

There’s no way they could generate similar revenue per user. Revenue per user depends on much advertisers are willing to pay and there are a couple of differences: 1) Targeting: Instagram has exceptional ad targeting because it utilizes facebook’s existing data which TikTok tool doesn’t have. 2) Online spending: In theory wealthier countries / demographics should have higher online spending. May also have correlation…

> There’s no way they could generate similar revenue per user.

I'll take the opposite side of this bet any time.

TikTok will become a juggernaut on par with Instagram and perhaps even surpassing it.

Re: ByteDance investors value TikTok at $50B in takeover bid

#135

Post by askafriend » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

devmunchies wrote: post #123

josephpmay wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snapchat is doing great and making money. They're still worth over 33 Billion.

I haven't seen or heard about anyone using snapchat in the last year. It used to be the location for all my family's chat. They definitely aren't experiencing explosive growth anymore.

The growth is focused internationally now.

Re: ByteDance investors value TikTok at $50B in takeover bid

#136

Post by xapata » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

tashoecraft wrote: post #68

paulpauper wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, give how wrong over the past decade pundits have been about Tesla, Uber, Facebook, Shopify, Amazon (and many others), I am inclined to discount/ignore any prediction of a rapidly-growing consumer tech or app company being a bubble. These pundits have a horrible track record of predicting this sort of stuff. A common thread for why these forecasts tend to be so bad is, such pundits ignore the growth of…

Fab at least grew so fast and did an absolutely terrible job at it. Invested in warehousing and competing with Amazon in terms of options and delivery. Money was treated as endless, each employee was given a membership to Equinox for example, ~200/month per employee, let alone all the other mindless expenses. Young employees were given free reign to buy whatever they thought would sell, which lead to massive stockpil…

> would have been successful

Fab could have been successful as a not-so-large company, but it wanted to be Amazon.

Re: ByteDance investors value TikTok at $50B in takeover bid

#137

Post by gabaix » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

paulpan wrote: post #117

It's sort to sad to see TikTok being forcibly sold off due to geopolitical factors, rather than on more business ones (e.g. competitiveness). Despite the controversy with its personal data leakage, TikTok has been massively successful and put the established players like Facebook, Twitter and even YouTube on alert. Competition forces companies to improve and just as we need Android to hold iOS accountable, etc TikTok…

Indeed. Fragmenting is inevitable as software takes over the world.

Countries using foreign products will be more and more wary of espionnage.

Attempts at local data residency are encouraging. Yet they are still a far cry from what is needed.

Re: ByteDance investors value TikTok at $50B in takeover bid

#138

Post by stale2002 » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

rydre wrote: post #10

mobilio wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OR could follow Snap fate?

No, it's going to be bigger. I know most people dont use snap but they use tiktok. Everyone young uses tiktok. It's much bigger than snap could have ever hoped. TikTok is FAANG tier company. If I were the founder, I'd go the Chinese government and ask them to ban Tesla and put tariff on Apple in retaliation. Tell the U.S. to play free market like they claim. Or lost access for it's companies. TikTok deserves it's suc…

> If I were the founder, I'd go the Chinese government and ask them to ban Tesla and put tariff on Apple in retaliation. Tell the U.S. to play free market like they claim. Or lost access for it's companies

China has already been doing stuff like this for decades.

It is about time that the US started doing the same thing back, when it makes sense to do so.

Re: ByteDance investors value TikTok at $50B in takeover bid

#139

Post by stale2002 » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

FooBarWidget wrote: post #61

_vbdg wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they didn't ban US companies in retaliation either That's probably because they've already been banning American companies for years if they posed any potential thread to Communist control.

You mean, as opposed to other countries, where entities that threaten to overthrow their governments are allowed to continue to operate?

Look if you think it is justified for China to keep out foreign companies, fine.

But if that is your opinion then don't come crying to the rest of the world, when they do the same exact thing to Chinese corporations that China has been doing to others, for decades.

Fair is fair.

Re: ByteDance investors value TikTok at $50B in takeover bid

#140

Post by earthboundkid » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 5:55 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #108

pjc50 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a terrible deal, because it amounts to letting them clone your technology in depth. On the other hand, until the US kicked over the table, the UK had a national security oversight centre for Huawei where people with UK security clearances performed code review ..

Yeah but they don't pretend that it is foolproof. It's the typical government "we have to do something" answer to a fundamental problem. Software defined networks are not secure from state level interference and everybody in tech that is honest knows it. And since they are not secure, and not easily monitored with strong encryption they're the perfect delivery vector for targeted malware. I wish we had the political…

There are two questions about the CCP and spyware: is it technically possible and do they have the political will to do it?

I don't think the CCP is putting spyware into the iPhone because it's only barely technically possible and they don't have the will to risk it. Getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar there would be the end of their whole economic strategy.

Would the CCP put spyware into Tik Tok? It's trivially possible, and the will is absolutely there. I would be more surprised if it were somehow proved that they weren't interfering with Tik Tok on some level.

Would the CCP put spyware into 5G? AFAICT, it would be technically possible, and the payoff from it would be so huge that they might have the will for it, but it's a close thing. Hard to say definitively either way. I think the industrialized nations should make their own 5G, just so they're not shut out of a growth industry, but the spy thing is sort of a wild card that could be something or nothing.