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Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

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Re: Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

#31

Post by sharkweek »

majani wrote: post #27
carrotsarm wrote: post #9

Good Timing. No data to back what I'm saying, but I don't see FB going up any further. The time spent by me (almost none) and my other non-techie friends has decreased drastically on the website and I still don't see a very effective monetization strategy.

They still have two billion dollar opportunities that they are sitting on: 1. An Adsense competitor 2. Video ads These are not wild predictions of possible revenue streams. Facebook has already launched these features to select partners and when they are launched to the public, their stock will jump a lot more.

I am waiting for a good explanation as to why they haven't started an Adsense competitor yet; seems like it would be a goldmine

Re: Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

#32

Post by tptacek »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #20
kayoone wrote: post #2

TLDR Nothing to interesting, they got in relatively late and are now selling a part to give it back to investors while still keeping the majority of their shares, so this has nothing todo with them not trusting in Facebooks vision any longer.

But if they still believed in FB's vision, why would they dump so much stock? 1/3 sounds like a lot to me.

If they don't believe in FB's vision, why would they retain 2/3rds of their Fb holdings? What a silly comment.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

#33

Post by samstave »

majani wrote: post #27
carrotsarm wrote: post #9

Good Timing. No data to back what I'm saying, but I don't see FB going up any further. The time spent by me (almost none) and my other non-techie friends has decreased drastically on the website and I still don't see a very effective monetization strategy.

They still have two billion dollar opportunities that they are sitting on: 1. An Adsense competitor 2. Video ads These are not wild predictions of possible revenue streams. Facebook has already launched these features to select partners and when they are launched to the public, their stock will jump a lot more.

The issue I see with their ability to execute on those ideas though - I think facebook home's epic flop is a good indication of the quality of innovation to expect from FB going forward.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

#34

Post by jhonovich »

There's no value to A16Z's investors for A16Z to hold shares in publicly traded companies. If the investors want to, they can buy shares directly and not through a VC firm.

The value to these investors is access and expertise in selecting private companies, not holding shares in public ones.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

#35

Post by MarcusBrutus »

resu_nimda wrote: post #26
josephagoss wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like protecting people from themselves. I disagree and believe people should have easy access to buying shares, if its a disaster only themselves are to blame. Also it is not the same as repairing an Airplane. If you lose all your money you only hurt yourself and your family. (And thats the way it should be, people should loss if they are stupid with their finances.)

"Who cares if millions of people take bad loans that they have no chance of repaying? That's their own fault, they should know better." And yet, look at how deeply the entire world was affected. People need to be protected from themselves for the well-being of society. Also, are you Ayn Rand or something? Your only point of argument here is that people should be given more opportunity to ruin the lives of their famil…

It's so much comforting to know that the unwashed masses can look up to people such as you or the "experts" to protect them (with compassion) from themselves or from those who seek to manipulate or take advantage of them, such simpletons that they are. Makes it a better world.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

#36

Post by rhaker »

jhonovich wrote: post #34

There's no value to A16Z's investors for A16Z to hold shares in publicly traded companies. If the investors want to, they can buy shares directly and not through a VC firm. The value to these investors is access and expertise in selecting private companies, not holding shares in public ones.

point well made, though, there may be U.S. tax reasons that would influence the timing of sales (e.g. offsets in their portfolio)

Re: Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

#37

Post by adventured »

sharkweek wrote: post #31
majani wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They still have two billion dollar opportunities that they are sitting on: 1. An Adsense competitor 2. Video ads These are not wild predictions of possible revenue streams. Facebook has already launched these features to select partners and when they are launched to the public, their stock will jump a lot more.

I am waiting for a good explanation as to why they haven't started an Adsense competitor yet; seems like it would be a goldmine

The only explanation I've seen that makes any sense to me, is that their ad systems are still immature. They haven't figured out how to properly monetize their own platforms fully just yet, much less the rest of the Web.

Which also helps to explain why they get rated so poorly on return-on-investment when it comes to ad spending.

I'd say the last year has been a substantial break-through for Facebook in terms of pushing their ad systems forward and getting wide adoption of it (including finally getting mobile to spit dollars). Maybe a couple more years of developing their advertising platform and they'll get there.

I also think there's a general underestimation of how good the Google ad system is overall, and how hard it is to compete with.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

#38

Post by onedev »

samstave wrote: post #33
majani wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They still have two billion dollar opportunities that they are sitting on: 1. An Adsense competitor 2. Video ads These are not wild predictions of possible revenue streams. Facebook has already launched these features to select partners and when they are launched to the public, their stock will jump a lot more.

The issue I see with their ability to execute on those ideas though - I think facebook home's epic flop is a good indication of the quality of innovation to expect from FB going forward.

The issue with Home was that it was just too early to launch. They thought they could launch a beta product and get some feedback before iterating, but they severely underestimated users' needs for things like folders; which seems obvious in retrospect.

I think it will turn out to be a successful product as it evolves and integrates with more services.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

#39

Post by AsymetricCom »

charlesdm wrote: post #23
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if they still believed in FB's vision, why would they dump so much stock? 1/3 sounds like a lot to me.

Maybe they need to liquidate part of their holdings to: 1/ Return some capital to investors 2/ Start up a new fund to invest in other things? They would've sold their entire stake if they didn't believe FB would grow anymore.

What a ridiculous supposition. The truth is we can't read anything into this except that is a very significant percentage of his FB holdings.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

#40

Post by resu_nimda »

MarcusBrutus wrote: post #35
resu_nimda wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Who cares if millions of people take bad loans that they have no chance of repaying? That's their own fault, they should know better." And yet, look at how deeply the entire world was affected. People need to be protected from themselves for the well-being of society. Also, are you Ayn Rand or something? Your only point of argument here is that people should be given more opportunity to ruin the lives of their famil…

It's so much comforting to know that the unwashed masses can look up to people such as you or the "experts" to protect them (with compassion) from themselves or from those who seek to manipulate or take advantage of them, such simpletons that they are. Makes it a better world.

Actually my assertion is that the "experts" are doing the manipulating, and the "unwashed masses" don't have the proper protection in our aggressively capitalist system. Can you put forth an actual argument though, something more than vague sarcasm?
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