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

Facebook is not worth $33 billion

37signals.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 266 posts

Re: Facebook is not worth $33 billion

#211

Post by jemmons »

spolsky wrote: post #41
dhh wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Thanks for the word correction, updated. 2. Publicly traded companies have instant liquidity on many more shares, which makes using "last share sold" an meaningful metric. 3. When only 3% of the money a company is supposedly worth has been moved around, it's a poor indicator of what the other 97% would go for. 4. They haven't figured out how to make much profit yet. And it's still questionable whether they will. M…

2. That's just not correct. Spend twenty minutes talking to anyone who trades in bonds or equity before you make assumptions about what liquidity you need to get a good price... it's not much. Facebook trades all the time on sharespost, certainly enough to be liquid and to reach a market price. Google itself only has a tiny fraction of the shares available to the public (10% if I remember correctly) and far less than…

Hey! Ad-hominem the 37 signals if you must, but leave Chicago out of it!

Re: Facebook is not worth $33 billion

#212

Post by [deleted] »

vessenes wrote: post #164
brm wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point of order... It wasn't a series E, it was $120 million in purchases on the secondary market http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/28/elevation-invests-another-1...

This is an extremely important point, germane to the conversation.. The $120mm was not a funding round -- it was liquidity for founders. Huge difference, and it invalidates much of dhh's original analysis.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook is not worth $33 billion

#213

Post by mapgrep »

vessenes wrote: post #164
brm wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point of order... It wasn't a series E, it was $120 million in purchases on the secondary market http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/28/elevation-invests-another-1...

This is an extremely important point, germane to the conversation.. The $120mm was not a funding round -- it was liquidity for founders. Huge difference, and it invalidates much of dhh's original analysis.

Does it? DHH seemed to be saying that if Facebook had profits and cash flow they wouldn't need outside sources to provide liquidity. So the important part as far as DHH's point is that Facebook needed cash - whether the "liquidity" came with or without dilution, the point is Facebook needed it.

Re: Facebook is not worth $33 billion

#214

Post by irahul »

xentronium wrote: post #170
subbu wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it all started with Joel's "Language Wars" article http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/09/01.html for which DHH responded with "Fear, Uncertain, and Doubt by Joel Spolsky" http://www.loudthinking.com/arc/000596.html . They have been at loggerheads since then.

If you're like me and can't access loudthinking link, here's a copy: http://www.artima.com/forums/flat.jsp?forum=123&thread=1...

Thanks for the link. I couldn't really access the loudthinking link.

On this one, I am with David. Joel pretty much negates his point about using something battle tested and mainstream in the end when he mentions using some proprietary language for his product, which translates to a couple of mainstream languages. I don't really see the point of cross-compiling to multiple languages. The work and time invested in maintaining the proprietary language can be better invested on other critical activities. If language interoperability is an issue, thrift or message queues is there to the rescue.

Why he would use some fancy stuff when he himself is advocating using mainstream stuff is beyond me. I sure would be betting on ruby being more robust than whatever he is using in-house (preposterous claim; I have no ideas what they have in-house)

IMO the only valid complain about Ruby was lack of good unicode support at the time post was written.

Re: Facebook is not worth $33 billion

#215

Post by jemmons »

angilly wrote: post #47
dhh wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Thanks for the word correction, updated. 2. Publicly traded companies have instant liquidity on many more shares, which makes using "last share sold" an meaningful metric. 3. When only 3% of the money a company is supposedly worth has been moved around, it's a poor indicator of what the other 97% would go for. 4. They haven't figured out how to make much profit yet. And it's still questionable whether they will. M…

I was impressed (surprised?) at how civil this response was. Probably because it was a response to Joel and not randomHNuser9 :) I was also surprised that it didn't really address the question of whether or not you (37S, dhh) are "stewing in their own witty ideas, listening only to the adoring comments they get from the groupies" Do you have any thoughts on the "bubble-ness" of Chicago. Think it's a totally invalid p…

Given employees of small service companies sometimes deal with clients more often than they deal with their own families, it's not unreasonable to posit these clients act as a "bubble" that insulates the company from the world at large.

What's laughable is Joel's implicit assumption that the majority of 37s clients are, apparently, Chicagoans. How charmingly pre-internet of him.

Re: Facebook is not worth $33 billion

#216

Post by jrep »

grandalf wrote: post #156
dhh wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2. The bond and equity markets are based on sound regulation, transparency, and quarterly statements. Facebook has none of those things when it operates in the dark of the secondary markets. 3. Again, these premiums are based on outstanding shares traded under the transparency of the public stock market. See Secondary Suckers for a nice take on the perils of the secondary market: http://www.homethinking.com/brontemed…

These are all valid points, but they are logically equivalent to saying "I don't understand why anyone pays $12 for a Ke$ha album". You may not agree on the worth of the album or of the shares, and nobody is forcing you to buy either one. That some people do consider it a good price is enough to result in a market price for both, on the basis of which many decisions are made.

Well, no, it's like saying "I don't understand why anyone pays $12,000 for a Ke$ha album." If the price was broadly reasonable, there would be no argument. But if the price gets outlandish, then someone needs to call B.S.

And yes, this happens now and then for ordinary, exchange-traded companies. Usually, it results in the exchange suspending trading for the company for a bit. Sometimes, it requires someone to call B.S. In an ordinary, regulated market, one or the other of those actions restores sense, gets the price back somewhere within shouting distance of reasonable.

Re: Facebook is not worth $33 billion

#217

Post by js2 »

spolsky wrote: post #139
dhh wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently it wasn't obvious from the "New York smells" point that it was a joke. So let me spell it out: It was a joke (even if it's actually, technically true. Many parts of New York really do smell from all that trash on the street!).

people don't have a sense of humor. obviously my comments about chicagoans not knowing how to multiply was a joke, too. They multiply like bunnies.

Ah, the Chicago-New York feud, older than Hatfield–McCoy.

Re: Facebook is not worth $33 billion

#218

Post by js2 »

irahul wrote: post #78
edw519 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird, it's like in Chicago they don't have multiplication or something. Oh, and New York smells. (take that!) Two of my heroes dragging discourse on hacker news into the toilet. What's the world coming to?

Both of them have some insights worth pondering, but the attacks are kinda negatively overshadowing the discussion. Joel really shouldn't have started the Chicago hyperbole. Do they have some history or it's just impulsive?

Joel really shouldn't have started the Chicago hyperbole

He's a New Yorker, it's in his DNA.

Re: Facebook is not worth $33 billion

#219

Post by jasonadamyoung »

spolsky wrote: post #5

I hate to leap in with what seems like an ad-hominem attack on the 37 signals, but their utter and complete misunderstanding of all the basics of business is starting to grate on me, and I'm wondering if it has anything to do with Chicago. Is the problem that they're sitting there in a city without any other Internet industry, stewing in their own witty ideas, listening only to the adoring comments they get from the…

Here's my issue after reading all of this. Who the hell cares? I love minutiae as much as anyone, but this is worse than arguing about text editors.

This sounds like a bunch of privileged people arguing about something that that doesn't make a damn bit of difference to what's really needed in this world.

I thought I was going to learn something. But now I just feel a little ashamed that I read any of it all.

Re: Facebook is not worth $33 billion

#220

Post by grandalf »

jrep wrote: post #216
grandalf wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are all valid points, but they are logically equivalent to saying "I don't understand why anyone pays $12 for a Ke$ha album". You may not agree on the worth of the album or of the shares, and nobody is forcing you to buy either one. That some people do consider it a good price is enough to result in a market price for both, on the basis of which many decisions are made.

Well, no, it's like saying "I don't understand why anyone pays $12,000 for a Ke$ha album." If the price was broadly reasonable, there would be no argument. But if the price gets outlandish, then someone needs to call B.S. And yes, this happens now and then for ordinary, exchange-traded companies. Usually, it results in the exchange suspending trading for the company for a bit. Sometimes, it requires someone to call B…

Not true, b/c as far as I know nobody is buying Ke$ha albums at $12K, while there are many investing in FB, hence the notion of a market price.

Not sure what phenomenon you're referring to in your second paragraph.

Post reply on HN