Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

allthingsd.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 50 posts

Re: Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

#21

Post by Tarang »

pearjuice wrote: post #15

"A pyramid scheme is an unsustainable business model that involves promising participants payment or services, primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, rather than supplying any real investment" "By selling some of its holdings, she said the firm is able to return cash to its investors." welp

I would strongly disagree with this. Using a pyramid scheme is hardly a good analogy with the current financing system we have.

Its a pyramid scheme when it doesn't work well & a company when it succeeds if I understand your logic correctly?

Re: Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

#22

Post by rwmj »

confluence wrote: post #12
MarcusBrutus wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bogus analogy. You have no business repairing airplanes because you may endanger lives. People should be free to squander their money in their folly if they so choose. Otherwise outlaw lottery, gambling and horse-racing as well.

Why not outlaw lottery, gambling and horse-racing? People misallocating capital is just as dangerous as an airplane mechanic misplacing a bolt on a Cessna. Both actions end up, in the long run, with people dying.

Most societies do try to control gambling because of the social problems it causes.

However this has nothing much to do with misallocating capital (after all, if they're misallocating it in gambling, why do you think they'd be smart enough to do any better if not allowed to gamble?) If you truly want to try allocating that capital better than the former owners of the money, buy shares in gambling companies.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

#23

Post by charlesdm »

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.

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.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

#24

Post by eriksank »

Since they know who you are, and since the central banking database knows how much money you have in what bank accounts, and since they know who your friends are, it is no problem to demographically calculate that you could reasonably get a heart attack now. Of course, you made quite a few strange large purchases just before you died, but only your friends would know that these were strange. Your balance is pretty much gone. You seem to be no longer keeping them up to date on what you are doing? Facebook is simply a gold mine, because any money that you are holding in bank accounts forms collectively a bounty on your head.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

#25

Post by acjohnson55 »

loceng wrote: post #18
nkohari wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount that you misunderstand what you're talking about is staggering.

The point is they're not that confident the stock will go up much more. Sure, you could look at it as spreading risk.

If that were true, they would liquidate much more aggressively. I don't know how much total value in shares they have left, but if you're a venture investor, your goal isn't to tie up all your money in ventures that have already broken through; your goal is to find the next one. If all they wanted to do is go long on stocks, they could do that without all the venture investing.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

#26

Post by resu_nimda »

josephagoss wrote: post #19
confluence wrote: post #8

Facebook is about 4x over fair value, so it's a pretty decent sale. It's too bad for the public investors that bought that shit up though. There should probably be a basic financial test that people should have to pass before they get access to a brokerage account. At some of the prices I'm seeing stock clearing, it's obvious that the buyers have not actually read any financial reports. Something like a basic written…

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 family at the hands of a system that has most likely willfully manipulated and taken advantage of their lack of experience (including convincing them that it was a good idea in the first place). Have some compassion.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

#27

Post by majani »

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.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

#28

Post by powertower »

confluence wrote: post #8

Facebook is about 4x over fair value, so it's a pretty decent sale. It's too bad for the public investors that bought that shit up though. There should probably be a basic financial test that people should have to pass before they get access to a brokerage account. At some of the prices I'm seeing stock clearing, it's obvious that the buyers have not actually read any financial reports. Something like a basic written…

I get what you are saying, but I think your analogy would rather be this (to remove the flaws in the parallel) -

> I have no knowledge of airplane mechanics, and hence, I probably have no business flying in airplanes.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

#29

Post by what_ever »

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.

I would say they still have a year or two's growth left if they don't come up with something new. Even though the growth is slowing down, I think they are improving the way they make money (more/better ads on Mobile for example). This would only result in better revenue and profits.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz Sells a Third of its Facebook Shares

#30

Post by josephagoss »

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…

You make an interesting counterpoint. I was assuming the person led themselves to buying shares of their own free will and not enticed by a bank or other power with malicious intent.

I think in your example the banks should really have been punished more as it was their doing that caused the crisis by misleading millions of people.

Post reply on HN