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

Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 774 posts

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#31

Post by danielvaughn »

MAGZine wrote: post #16
avgDev wrote: post #2

I work for non-tech generating 100million+ in revenue. Cushy job, fully remote, good pay and full autonomy with flexible hours working as an IC. I recently talked to a startup, similar pay, culture would be a better fit since it was mostly techies and I'm a nerd by nature.....but things just got awkward as soon as I asked about their revenue....they were bleeding money and I was told they were being acquired by a big…

the fact that you stopped to ask those questions makes me think that you're at minimum, an above average developer. caring about the business and its fundamentals is important beyond just slinging code.

I agree. I've had a couple of stints as a manager, now as a CTO for a small startup, and it's giving me so much insight into thinking about engineering from a business perspective. As an IC it's hard to get that birds eye view, but it's possible.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#33

Post by mupuff1234 »

qeternity wrote: post #11
freeqaz wrote: post #6

A lot of these companies have very reasonable P/E ratios now. Microsoft is sitting at around 27, Apple 25, and Facebook 15. None of those strike me as "inflated". Those are normal values for the stock market (20-25). Are investors just panicking?

> Those are normal values for the stock market (20-25). Presuming your experience in equities markets is within the last decade... Historical average is more like 15 for SPX.

It seems like the average p/e shifted higher in the last 30 years, so maybe 15 is no longer the "correct" baseline to compare to.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#34

Post by r0m4n0 »

ericmay wrote: post #10
freeqaz wrote: post #6

A lot of these companies have very reasonable P/E ratios now. Microsoft is sitting at around 27, Apple 25, and Facebook 15. None of those strike me as "inflated". Those are normal values for the stock market (20-25). Are investors just panicking?

I think there's some panic, yea, but the P/E doesn't tell the whole story. Take Facebook or maybe Google (just to pick on, others like Apple have their own headwinds to face) - how does advertising fair in a recession? Maybe the P/Es have retracted to look appealing, but here in about 2 years when ad revenue is down 30% those same P/Es look expensive. Personally I think if you are investing with a longer-term horizon…

Google has been around for 20 years so we can see what happened to advertising revenue during the last recession.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/266249/advertising-reven...

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#36

Post by prohobo »

csallen wrote: post #29
prohobo wrote: post #21

People said this was the "best time ever to get funding" for a startup. I disagree. In my view, it was the best time ever if you played a particular game and had the right connections. I pitched an idea to a VC, which I had a prototype for, looking for $100k. He liked it but wouldn't fund because I didn't have a solid business plan. Fair enough, I need to find a business partner. But then he told me something about h…

> You're telling me you can't spare $100k? That's not how it works. You're not the only person asking this VC for $100k. A thousand other people are, too. A policy where he spares it for (what he considers) a bad investment like yours means sparing it for all the other bad investments, too. That would cost a lot more than just one check.

I'm saying that he was already neck deep in bad investments, which he happily funded. That's the main point I'm talking about. I'm not saying my idea deserved investment, just that this whole industry has been full of bullshit for years.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#37

Post by PartiallyTyped »

deepnotderp wrote: post #19
versale wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel’s P/E is 7 right now. So, the other ratios do look inflated.

That’s because the market calculates a high probability of an Intel implosion

With an engineer on the helm, rehiring big names in the field, opening more fabs, and having access to TSMC's newest node over AMD[1].. it seems unlikely.

[1] https://www.extremetech.com/computing/334897-amd-might-have-...

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#38

Post by epgui »

duckfruit wrote: post #14
Victerius wrote: post #5

And all it took was the Federal Reserve raising the federal funds rate by less than 100 bps after a decade and a half of rock bottom rates. I have nothing more to add. I'm going to go outside and breathe some fresh air.

A rate hike that that was widely telegraphed and has been anticipated for years, to boot!

But it's the tone with which it was said, and the expressiveness of Chair Powell's eyebrows when he said it that was unanticipated.

/s

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#39

Post by gowld »

olivermarks wrote: post #26

The problem I have with the Economist these days - they've changed a lot recently as has the Financial Times - is that they are one of the big cheerleaders for creating bubbles out of tech they clearly don't understand. This starves the startups that have compelling and reachable business models and goals because the funding goes to (quite possibly financially scammy) moonshots with vague goals somewhere over the hor…

> they are one of the big cheerleaders for creating bubbles

Can you share an example?

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#40

Post by IshKebab »

cyral wrote: post #22
qeternity wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those are normal values for the stock market (20-25). Presuming your experience in equities markets is within the last decade... Historical average is more like 15 for SPX.

Here’s a chart of the historical average: https://www.multpl.com/s-p-500-pe-ratio

Presumably higher average ratios correlate with lower interest rates though.
Post reply on HN