131–140 of 303 posts
Is a private company's value akin to a public one's market capitalization? How is this determined?
Real evaluation is the same as for any other company, however in a private company you have less data to go with, the data can't be relied upon as much (since the source is mostly the company itself), and all of these risks get increased by the company being relatively new and not profitable yet. In exchange for the risk investors hope to gain similar growth of company value after they purchased their shares. Therefore most investors mostly look for factors that show huge growth chances, instead of looking at traditional health factors.
And what about Basecamp with its 100 billion valuation?
really? is that a joke?
Basecamp is now a $100 billion dollar company, according to a group of investors who have agreed to purchase 0.000000001% of the company in exchange for $1.
https://m.signalvnoise.com/press-release-basecamp-valuation-...
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Well, yes. That's the entire point of a corporation.
Sure, but on what timeframe? That's why small family businesses are some of the longest enduring - because their owners want them to generate earnings indefinitely. Investors who buy shares are often looking for much shorter term gains (1-5 years) and will put pressure on the board to sacrifice long term viability for a short term boost in share price.
And the longest living companies may actually be the biggest ones. At a certain size companies don't die anymore. They get merged with other big companies, restructured, or renamed.
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Revenue != valuation (but you might still be correct!)
I think it’s likely that a company with revenue in a year equal to another company’s total valuation might have a pretty high chance of having a higher valuation. In 2011, Cargill was estimated to be worth $55 billion http://blogs.reuters.com/breakingviews/2011/01/20/cargill-va...
> Mr. Musk faces competition from another billionaire. Blue Origin, a rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, aims to send tourists and supplies into space. Is that line even close to true? Last I heard Blue Origin was years away from revenue and far behind SpaceX in terms of capability and manufacturing.
Maybe not right now, but I wouldn't ever underestimate Bezos. Musk and Bezos are both people I wouldn't bet against, but they're so drastically different in their styles. Musk is flashy, but gets shit done. Bezos knows how to get shit done quietly... and suddenly he's dominated and bought everything around you.
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Maybe he's hired the rocket guys who can't take SpaceX's speed and like to actually spend evenings at home with their family :)? Only half kidding here.
Or maybe Bezos didn’t understand orbital mechanics and picked the wrong approach: They went into space and landed again, but they did not go into orbit yet (as far as I know) and landed again. De-orbiting and landing is different from just going straight up and returning to the launch site that is below your feet.
> Mr. Musk faces competition from another billionaire. Blue Origin, a rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, aims to send tourists and supplies into space. Is that line even close to true? Last I heard Blue Origin was years away from revenue and far behind SpaceX in terms of capability and manufacturing.
This interview with Tom Mueller (CTO of SpaceX) suggests that competitors have had to go back to the drawing board after seeing SpaceX accomplish wrt their low cost systems. https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/6b043z/tom_mueller_... That rocket is going to be the real game-changer. I would say that the Falcon 9 is evolutionary, you know, a reusable rocket that greatly reduces the cost of access to space. Maybe w…
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Whence this myth that Musk doesn't love money, just because he makes his money making cool tech? http://variety.com/gallery/elon-musk-buys-fifth-bel-air-home... http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-mclaren-f1-hypercar... wrecked-it-2015-6
People feel practical businessmen are money-focused. They think folks who appear to "risk it all" are altruistic. Musk doesn't project the image of being practical. He claims to have almost gone broke when investing in Tesla/SpaceX, and now makes super-optimistic predictions: fully self driving cars in a year, and AGI in 2030-2040. To some, this sets him apart from the "money-focused" crowd. Yet, you can think of way…