Meta shares drop 20% on Q4 earnings miss, weak outlook • Hacker News Board

Re: Meta shares drop 20% on Q4 earnings miss, weak outlook

#141

Post by Retric » Wed, Feb 02, 2022, 11:45 PM UTC

dmurray wrote: post #96

gzer0 wrote: post #59

Here are the results that caused this: - Earnings per share: $3.67 vs $3.84 expected - Revenue: $33.67 billion vs $33.4 billion expected Facebook also missed estimates with user numbers. - Daily Active Users (DAUs): 1.93 billion vs 1.95 billion expected - Monthly Active Users (MAUs): 2.91 billion vs 2.95 billion expected - Average Revenue per User (ARPU): $11.57 vs $11.38 expected Future guidance was the biggest miss…

It's not really plausible that the market can predict Facebook's earnings to within 5% and that such a small miss would cause a rational investor to value Facebook 20% lower. This seems more like a symptom of the market being generally skittish, with a small side of "expected" earnings actually being a low-biased estimate, so it's more like a 10% miss.

Stocks are always very sensitive to the slope of the profit curve. FB didn’t just miss earnings they also said next quarter will be lower than projected that’s generally going to see a significant drop.

Re: Meta shares drop 20% on Q4 earnings miss, weak outlook

#142

Post by ethbr0 » Wed, Feb 02, 2022, 11:45 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #112

paulryanrogers wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What phone monopoly did Apple disrupt? Nokia? Symbian? Java mobile? Palm? Blackberry?

AT&T

With the help of the FCC (1968 Carterphone) and US Justice (1974 US v ATT), no?

If Apple (and IBM) had been banned from communicating through long distance lines, except with ATT's permission, then it's hard to see how Western Electric (aka ATT) wouldn't have taxed all the nascent PC companies and retained enough profits to remain larger.

Edit: And on the later, iPhone side, that was the luck of power dynamics (single strong device manufacturer, bargaining against multiple competing cellular providers) coupled with phone company executive shortsightedness. If the cell phone industry has been less diverse (e.g. original ATT above), nobody would have felt the need to grant Apple any concessions.

Re: Meta shares drop 20% on Q4 earnings miss, weak outlook

#143

Post by Thaxll » Wed, Feb 02, 2022, 11:45 PM UTC

intrepidsoldier wrote: post #71

The data center infrastructure that Facebook (Meta) has is probably in the top 5 in this world (behind only Amazon, Microsoft, Google). They might want to become a cloud infrastructure provider for some side money and buy themselves some time to figure out this Metaverse fantasy :) Hey, AWS started because Amazon wanted to lease out their spare infrastructure capacity.

They have only 2 DC, what exatly can they sell, on top of that they built it for Facebook so how is it marketable?

Re: Meta shares drop 20% on Q4 earnings miss, weak outlook

#144

Post by moonshinefe » Wed, Feb 02, 2022, 11:46 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #116

ohashi wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can't be critical of a company that makes people miserable? That weakens democracy? That enables violence and hate? Just because they make a lot of money we should be cheering? Oh wow, they made $11! Let's forget everything else.

Be critical all you want, just don't try to gaslight by saying they're on the verge of collapse and everyone hates them. They're extremely popular and billions log in every day because they apparently get some kind of value out of the product

Literally nobody was arguing this, though. The OP's outburst about the "vitriol" on this topic also seems pretty overly dramatic, tbh, and has done wonders to derail things because it hurls personal insults.

Re: Meta shares drop 20% on Q4 earnings miss, weak outlook

#145

Post by moralestapia » Wed, Feb 02, 2022, 11:46 PM UTC

ummonk wrote: post #110

sorry_outta_gas wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the feeling it's a lot of people bitter they failed the interview process

I worked at Facebook thinking it was trying to improve and have a positive impact on the world. Working there made me realize that the #1 goal was to increase active users, user engagement, and profitability, and having a responsible impact on the world would take a back seat to this. Additionally, it was clear that Zuck’s vision for the world is to create a universal platform through which the world connects and soc…

>thinking it was trying to improve and have a positive impact on the world

Were you like a very early employee or are you just that naive?

FB's intent became quite clear, quite fast in their history. Like, remember when they became so famous for their lack of ethics that even a hollywood movie came out whose plot is pretty much only about that?

And that was 12(!) years ago ... so, I am truly wondering, from where exactly did you get this idea of a company trying to change the world for good?

Re: Meta shares drop 20% on Q4 earnings miss, weak outlook

#146

Post by eschulz » Wed, Feb 02, 2022, 11:46 PM UTC

intrepidsoldier wrote: post #71

The data center infrastructure that Facebook (Meta) has is probably in the top 5 in this world (behind only Amazon, Microsoft, Google). They might want to become a cloud infrastructure provider for some side money and buy themselves some time to figure out this Metaverse fantasy :) Hey, AWS started because Amazon wanted to lease out their spare infrastructure capacity.

Yes absolutely since that field will only continue to grow. Make cloud computing super beginner friendly like Heroku.

I think an opportunity can be found in approaching search. They already have so much data about what people are interested in, and they can start by perfecting Facebook Marketplace to a simple user-friendly successor to Craig's List.

Re: Meta shares drop 20% on Q4 earnings miss, weak outlook

#147

Post by acdha » Wed, Feb 02, 2022, 11:46 PM UTC

paulryanrogers wrote: post #102

WalterBright wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is ironic considering that Apple displaced the former unstoppable phone monopoly. Never mind that Walmart displaced the former unstoppable Sears monopoly, and Amazon did the same to Walmart. IBM which people predicted was unstoppable, was going to rule the world. IBM's descent into irrelevance (I B What?) has been profound. The only interesting thing is people still insist that this time it's gonna be different.

What phone monopoly did Apple disrupt? Nokia? Symbian? Java mobile? Palm? Blackberry?

The phone carriers. They charged a fortune for data, restricted useful features on your phone (I remember one model which wouldn't play non-DRMed music because they wanted to boost their revenue), and things like mobile apps were held back by the way the carriers would look at your finances and decide how much to charge just for the privilege of being listed. When Qualcomm was getting started with BREW we looked into it for a few customers but even a modest business would get something like the _MINIMUM_ $50k listing fee for each carrier, adjusted up based on your perceived ability to pay, and they wanted more than 30% of the app pricing, too.

Re: Meta shares drop 20% on Q4 earnings miss, weak outlook

#148

Post by magicjosh » Wed, Feb 02, 2022, 11:46 PM UTC

voidfunc wrote: post #131

intrepidsoldier wrote: post #71

The data center infrastructure that Facebook (Meta) has is probably in the top 5 in this world (behind only Amazon, Microsoft, Google). They might want to become a cloud infrastructure provider for some side money and buy themselves some time to figure out this Metaverse fantasy :) Hey, AWS started because Amazon wanted to lease out their spare infrastructure capacity.

This would be an interesting but perilous pivot... trying to get into cloud infra at this point seems like an insane idea. What would even be the attraction for company to want to run on FB cloud vs one of the established players that now have a decade plus of real world operations experience from running 3rd party customer workloads? If we are spitballing ideas, If I am Zuck I'm looking at figuring out how to buy Va…

Too bad Bungie and Activision are off the table!

I like these Zuck spitball ideas tho.

Is the idea really that the metaverse is their big next market? I like VR but who the heck believes FB will lead it?

Re: Meta shares drop 20% on Q4 earnings miss, weak outlook

#149

Post by skinnymuch » Wed, Feb 02, 2022, 11:46 PM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #87

intrepidsoldier wrote: post #71

The data center infrastructure that Facebook (Meta) has is probably in the top 5 in this world (behind only Amazon, Microsoft, Google). They might want to become a cloud infrastructure provider for some side money and buy themselves some time to figure out this Metaverse fantasy :) Hey, AWS started because Amazon wanted to lease out their spare infrastructure capacity.

in the world? ali baba would like to have a word

True, but Alibaba does do cloud. Facebook and Tencent are far and away the biggest web companies that don’t do some sort of B2B cloud offering.

Re: Meta shares drop 20% on Q4 earnings miss, weak outlook

#150

Post by jmknoll » Wed, Feb 02, 2022, 11:46 PM UTC

dymk wrote: post #120

mjfl wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook is betting the farm on the metaverse stuff and it's an odd bet.

I've been using a roommate's Quest 2 for a few days. A few years ago I was using an OG Oculus. The Quest 2 is so much staggeringly better in every way. So much so that I can see a future where people are spending hours in VR games rather than hours playing games on a monitor. Yes, there are issues to work out with the headbands, weight, general FPS and battery life, but I finally _get_ it. The amount of badassery you…

I’m with you on this. I received a Quest as a Christmas gift and basically went from 0 to 100 on VR and the Metaverse. It finally makes sense to me.

Like you say, there are some issues with the tech, but they’ll be resolved in time, and it’s clear that this is the future of gaming at least, and maybe much of social media/virtual interaction.