Goodbye tech IPO window.
NASDAQ:FB
221–230 of 319 posts
Re: NASDAQ:FB
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
bad news: Instagram isn't worth $1B. sorry. hope you have a good cost basis.
How many stocks have the potential to be the biggest company in the world? Fb is one of them.
well if it really is then i hope it turns around somewhere soon. As of now, it's looking like 0% for the first day, and even that is an artificial level supported by the underwriters of the IPO. I'd cut your losses, get out soon, and wait until the stock corrects somewhere lower, mid-20s or even below.
Re: NASDAQ:FB
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're right and I should have said that. Of course I give him some credit. However, I wouldn't necessarily give him as much credit as he gets (and to be fair to him, I doubt he seeks the crazy accolades either). Frankly, it almost goes without saying that if you and your team put together a system that handles a billion users, you deserve some credit. The question is simply: how much?
I dunno, I think he deserves a massive amount of credit. The guy was 18 when this thing started, and he was competing against 800lb gorillas (myspace etc). The other thing to note is that everything has gone right for Facebook. I don't believe that would have happened if their execution wasn't so fantastic. Major major props are due to Zuckerberg and the entire early team (and I find this hard to disagree with, regar…
I'm with you on the major props to the team (of which MZ is a big part). Execution is king, and Facebook's execution of their strategy thus far has been exquisite. What that should translate to in dollar terms I don't know but, for me, it feels like it should be quite a bit less than a hundred billion.
Re: NASDAQ:FB
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google was just an iteration over other search engines.
An iteration with huge improvement. Would you say if Google wouldn't have happened, we would be fine searching on Yahoo, Altavista and Lycos? And webmail would be fine and dandy with Yahoo Mail and Hotmail if there was no Gmail?
Facebook was at least that big a jump over its previous alternatives. That's the point.
Re: NASDAQ:FB
#225This is Hacker News. The top-voted comment on this thread really should be words of praise for what Zuckerberg and his team have accomplished. Every hacker, every entrepreneur, every creator should derive inspiration and uplift from Facebook's story. It's a rare bright day in the middle of the worst economic environment since the 1930s. It doesn't matter whether the company will grow into a $100B valuation. It does m…
I'm a code monkey who trades as well. They are two completely different things by the way. Programming motivates you to never give up on your code whereas trading disciplines you to never fight against the market.
Personally, I think that the recent price action on FB, ZNGA and GRPN means that the market has no appetite for over-hyped valuation of web 2.0 companies trading at 100x their earnings (or loss for that matter). So I'll be buying bearish call spreads or outright puts when these POS bounce. I have no ill feeling towards Zuckerberg but want to make a profit trading.
Now on the topic of "creators" creating value, it's my opinion that the guys that have created value in computing are Linus Tovald and rms'es, not the start-up kids who do copy-paste RoRpasta on Stack Overflow and get ridiculous valuation 'cause we are in a bubble. IMO it's the FB engineers that optimized php engine and open-sourced, not Mark Zuckerberg nor Cheryl Sanderberg nor the VCs.
Re: NASDAQ:FB
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if the FB IPO ends up being perceived as primarily a massive transfer of wealth from enthusiastic well-meaning small investors to the brokers and investment bankers?
There is no line between "well-meaning small investors" and the banks. They are playing the same game. People who put money into Facebook early were hoping to get rich(er); they didn't do it out of the goodness our their heart. It's an SV fallacy that angels are, well, angels.
I'm not saying anyone was being charitable, I'm saying there might be a psychological demand effect that applies to long term "value" investors and not just hype-driven day traders.
Re: NASDAQ:FB
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
bad news: Instagram isn't worth $1B. sorry. hope you have a good cost basis.
How many stocks have the potential to be the biggest company in the world? Fb is one of them.
You're living in a pipe dream if you think a data analytics company will become the biggest company in the world.
Re: NASDAQ:FB
#228Opened at 42 and closed at 38 on the first day... wonder what that means...
Re: NASDAQ:FB
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google was just an iteration over other search engines.
There's a magnitude improvement from Altavista to Google. Not so with Facebook over an alternative.
Were you using Friendster in 2004? At that time, Facebook was a real quantum leap over a site that didn't let you log in because it was too slow.
For me, at least, that was the critical step - having a site that just worked.
Re: NASDAQ:FB
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. The growing levels of envy and cynicism on hn is unhealthy. Trashing other people's efforts doesn't make your own more successful.
I agree. Nearly every mention in HN comments of a newly-successful tech company (Groupon, Zynga, Instagram, etc.) includes regurgitation of the same bullshit anecdotes used to perpetuate the narrative assigned to each company. I have always felt that envy plays a big role in which companies we choose to hate.
As a post above me points out, don't confuse envy with cynicism. Groupon and Zynga are both awful companies (in terms of furthering the cause of humanity at least) and both are currently trading at under their initial IPO price. Hate is a strong word but forgive me if I (and others) don't choose to point to Zynga and Groupon as paragons of success.