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Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

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Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#351

Post by nouveaux »

prohobo wrote: post #21

People said this was the "best time ever to get funding" for a startup. I disagree. In my view, it was the best time ever if you played a particular game and had the right connections. I pitched an idea to a VC, which I had a prototype for, looking for $100k. He liked it but wouldn't fund because I didn't have a solid business plan. Fair enough, I need to find a business partner. But then he told me something about h…

I think there is some notion that VCs are these rational, brilliant people who are making money hand over fist investing in the best projects. The reality is that many VCs do not make money and invest in tons of bad projects all the time.

Why would they invest in bad projects? Because they are humans who happens to have a crap ton of money. As humans, they're susceptible to FOMO and hype. They are susceptible to things like first impressions, a good slide deck, a good sales person, etc.

All this to say is that it might be the VC, it might you, or it might be your project. Who knows. This is why many founders end up pitching to 30-40 VCs because sometimes it's a numbers game.

The whole VC funding thing is a game that you have to learn about and crack. The easiest way to crack it is to show you have growing revenue. The next best thing is to show you have growing users. If you do not have growth, then you'll just have to hustle and put on your best sales game.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#352

Post by shrimpx »

legitster wrote: post #75

This has been a long time coming. Back in the day, there was an inherent understanding that a stock price is supposed to reflect "the fundamentals" - present value of the company + future earnings. And of course there was some amount of speculation around future earnings, but for the most part companies at least tried to be profitable. But if you look at the share price of like, Tesla - it's completely insane. There…

The standard explanation is that the market tends to price in future gains, and Tesla is seen as having far greater growth and market domination potential than the other brands with small P/E.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#353

Post by eecc »

gonzo41 wrote: post #92
lumost wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Across every investment class there has been a trend of buyers needing to become more financially irresponsible in order to participate in the market. Need to buy a house? bid 20% more than asking, if you don't - someone else will.. in cash. Need to build a ride-hailing app? prepare to pay people to ride indefinitely. Need to own a growth stock? prepare to pay upwards of 100x multiple on revenue. All around, there ha…

This is also a central banking fail in so far that there's that much liquidity in the market that can't find a productive outlet. There's a lot of money, but also not enough concentrated in one spot to do really useful ventures like large infrastructure projects. So instead the money is distorting everything. Imagine if lending was less cheap for home owners but it was still cheap for governments or really large comp…

Wasn’t that the Soviet double ruble system? Whenever the Politburo wanted to find a mega project the money was wished into existence and things happened (just as it’s done today) yet it was illiquid and only usable in a sealed silo, separate from the normal exchange ruble.

Wonder how a similar mechanism would work today

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#354

Post by Robotbeat »

SauciestGNU wrote: post #290
Robotbeat wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sucks is that fiscal policy, ie government spending, is also often not very efficient. Even when rampant corruption doesn’t destroy efficiency, crushing bureaucracy or just plain incompetence will. (Is the DMV a model of efficiency?) So you need a smart balance. And you need competent, honest people in both business AND government. I don’t think that government necessarily is inefficient. The DMV could be a very…

People keep using the DMV as an example of government inefficiency, but my state has made it run so painlessly I don't think I've spent more than 15 minutes in an office over the last 5 years. I think government can be efficient if you put technocrats in charge of implementation rather than elected officials who are subject to the electoral whims of the uninformed masses. The problem with the above is it weakens demo…

My point wasn’t to say DMV is ALWAYS inefficient but just that the DMV is a good litmus test for efficiency. Sounds like in your state, the DMV is efficient and therefore perhaps fiscal policy would be well-spent!

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#355

Post by JoshCole »

abzolv wrote: post #289
legitster wrote: post #75

This has been a long time coming. Back in the day, there was an inherent understanding that a stock price is supposed to reflect "the fundamentals" - present value of the company + future earnings. And of course there was some amount of speculation around future earnings, but for the most part companies at least tried to be profitable. But if you look at the share price of like, Tesla - it's completely insane. There…

If average Jane, who is not a raving Tesla fan, wants to spend circa $140K on an EV, and she has to choose between the Mercedes EQS 580 and the Tesla Model X, which one would you say is the no-brainer (better value for money)? https://www.mbusa.com/en/vehicles/class/eqs/sedan https://www.tesla.com/modelx That is the future of Tesla. Increasing competition by better products offered by manufacturers with far more expe…

Current price on your link is ~$100k not $140k. It was much more confusing to use the first site, but click through I found something that was also about $100k when you chose the budget options. Meanwhile, for all numbers that both Tesla and Mercedes list publicly the Model X has better numbers. For example, in horsepower and 0-60 the Tesla does better. For some numbers, the Tesla lists the number - like range - but the Mercedes doesn't.

Declaring my bias: I think this is because they are much worse in range. Now looking up the numbers: 340 mile range for Mercedes. 350 for the Tesla. I was wrong. Tesla was only better, not much better.

Clicking through to order takes several clicks for Mercedes. Along the way of the happy path toward immediate purchase an interstitial pops up and warns me that the price will be changed if I try to order because they don't have the supplies to service the order. Tesla by contrast just lets me order the car with a delivery date in January of next year.

To say your post is deeply misleading as to who is obviously the no-brainer in value for money is an understatement.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#356

Post by Robotbeat »

joebob42 wrote: post #277
Robotbeat wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sucks is that fiscal policy, ie government spending, is also often not very efficient. Even when rampant corruption doesn’t destroy efficiency, crushing bureaucracy or just plain incompetence will. (Is the DMV a model of efficiency?) So you need a smart balance. And you need competent, honest people in both business AND government. I don’t think that government necessarily is inefficient. The DMV could be a very…

I think by the time you're saying "my system depends on the people in it being honest and competent" you've kind of already lost. Some people are competent, most aren't. Many people are honest, but some aren't. You aren't going to change that so you have to be resilient to it.

Every system works better with honest and competent people. That’s my point!

Some systems are more resilient to dishonesty and incompetence than others. I suspect a mixed system is the most resilient. But we CAN change the behavior by choosing to reward competence and honesty by who we elect, who we hire, and who we do business with.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#357

Post by im_down_w_otp »

gonzo41 wrote: post #92
lumost wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Across every investment class there has been a trend of buyers needing to become more financially irresponsible in order to participate in the market. Need to buy a house? bid 20% more than asking, if you don't - someone else will.. in cash. Need to build a ride-hailing app? prepare to pay people to ride indefinitely. Need to own a growth stock? prepare to pay upwards of 100x multiple on revenue. All around, there ha…

This is also a central banking fail in so far that there's that much liquidity in the market that can't find a productive outlet. There's a lot of money, but also not enough concentrated in one spot to do really useful ventures like large infrastructure projects. So instead the money is distorting everything. Imagine if lending was less cheap for home owners but it was still cheap for governments or really large comp…

The central bank doesn't control policies like that though. They have scant few actual knobs to turn on their own without Congressional intervention.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#358

Post by petra »

Robotbeat wrote: post #202
kurthr wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is "the market" working for you! We could allocate resources to productive assets by fiscal spending, but that is prevented by politics. Only when "the market" gets its cut can any infrastructure be built in the US. That's also true for much of the medical establishment and pension/retirement systems. If the market was efficient, we wouldn't be complaining about it. Unfortunately, a "free market" and an efficien…

What sucks is that fiscal policy, ie government spending, is also often not very efficient. Even when rampant corruption doesn’t destroy efficiency, crushing bureaucracy or just plain incompetence will. (Is the DMV a model of efficiency?) So you need a smart balance. And you need competent, honest people in both business AND government. I don’t think that government necessarily is inefficient. The DMV could be a very…

The DMV outsourced it's service in some areas. Service improved. So it's possible to benefit from the benefits of public spending and private efficiencies. It's a pretty common method for governments to spend money.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#359

Post by gitfan86 »

randcraw wrote: post #345
martindbp wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla made more money last quarter than Ford, GM and Toyota. Toyota made 10x the number of cars as Tesla. Tesla is growing vehicle production 50% YoY, while growing profit even faster (having barely hit economies of scale yet). Tesla has a backlog of orders approaching a year in many regions. Everyone else is losing money on their EVs and can't make them in volume production, can't find the batteries for them, becaus…

Tesla's net income in 2021 was $5.5B, GM $8.8B, Ford $11.5B, Toyota $28B. Tesla's PE ratio is 99.6, GM 5.6, Ford 10.4, Toyota 8.25. Tesla's market cap is $1,061B, GM $85B, Ford's $83B, Toyota $254B. The state of Tesla's stock is simply unreal, not based on fundamentals but on inertia and hype.

Take this logic and compare AAPL and RIMM in 2009. This is why people are buying TSLA.

If you think that GM is going to successfully pivot to EVs and that Tesla will not continue to grow 50% a year, that is a fine opinion to have, but if you look at CNBC clips from 2009 you will see very similar comparisons being made around AAPL and RIMM, to what you are saying today.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#360

Post by bonoboTP »

the_doctah wrote: post #134
ctime wrote: post #55

I don't think we need the latest Cloud/AI/ML/Crypto/Web3.0 bullshit to spin up fuckedcompany.com again. I remember thinking in ~2015 going to conferences that this shit was never going to last. Then around 2018 driving (sitting) on 101 listening to advertisements for "C3 IoT AI" on NPR thinking, could a company jam more meaningless buzzwords into a single company name? For shits, looked up their stock just and its do…

Any time I ask on some financial forum about moving a chunk of investments to cash I get told that would be stupid, don't try to time the market, and just keep buying. I would have saved myself a bunch of losses if I had done it when I was thinking about it.

Keeping your money as cash is also an investment. It's not a guaranteed value preserver, inflation can eat it. So in the end it comes down to trying to predict the future, just like everyone else is trying to do. There is no guarantee, cashing out can make you lose or make you win.
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