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Pinterest Raises $367M at $11B valuation

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Re: Pinterest Raises $367M at $11B valuation

#91

Post by jaronheard »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #48
jaronheard wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Misleading comparison. Armenia's GDP is the estimated economic worth produced annually by Armenia. Pinterest's valuation relates to the economic value produced by Pinterest for all future years, not annually.

I get the feeling no matter what comparison I make, you'd call it misleading, because that's really splitting at hairs. The thrust of the comment and the point of referencing Armenia's GDP was the scale of the figures. I've now edited it out since apparently nobody can address my point without slapping around the GDP comparison, as if it's important I get every word of my comment exactly right regardless of the point…

I'm comfortable pointing out misleading comparisons in any statement, whether I agree with the underlying argument or not. When you feel like you are in the minority, it is especially important to choose your comparisons and arguments carefully so that people don't dismiss you before understanding you. When discussing with detail oriented people, it's important to get the details right.

Re: Pinterest Raises $367M at $11B valuation

#92

Post by nl »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #74
bottled_poe wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to the free market. Either deliver what people want or fail. If influencing human behaviour is more important to you, then you may be in the wrong profession.

I see it's now time to condescendingly explain economics to me to counter a morality lamentation, including the suggestion that I should shut up and get out of not just the industry, but my profession , as if somehow I fucked up thinking computers can effect change outside of marketing. Right, how dare I invest my life into writing software and hoping the possibilities include anything outside of selling Pepsi and Ve…

Economic judgement should not be confused with morality.

I suspect many here agree that Pinterest doesn't contribute greatly to the betterment of humanity. That does not mean it isn't economically valuable.

I actually think there's an argument that trying to quantify moral value in economic terms in itself morally questionable. There's room for other measurement systems outside monetary value.

Re: Pinterest Raises $367M at $11B valuation

#93

Post by codeshaman »

coke12 wrote: post #60
codeshaman wrote: post #35

Good. In the age when the planet is faced with overpopulation, climate change, pollution and a myriad of other issues, including the shadow of ww3, the investors bet on a photo-sharing startup. Down-voters rejoice, but I couldn't care less about pinterest and what it offers. Maybe I'm getting old or maybe being a parent gives me a different perspective, but 11B for nicely arranged list of photos is idiotic. I'm sure…

This point of view is incredibly myopic; what you're seeing is what innovation looks like to people who don't benefit directly from said innovation. Knowledge discovery is huge, and it becomes especially profitable when that knowledge is tied to existing products (e..g expensive jewelry, wedding dresses).

Maybe I'm myopic, or maybe everyone else is.

The state of the world seems to show that the vast majority of people, even the smart ones, don't really get it yet. But they will, sooner or later the elephant in the room will be impossible to ignore. Let's hope it won't be too late then.

The issue is this: the world doesn't need more 'innovation' - we've already innovated enough to the point of being on the verge, all in the name of 'products' and profit.

If articles like 'California has 1 year left of water' doesn't sound alarm bells then take a look around - these kind of news are all over the world.

Our only hope out of this is to apply what we already know and 'un-inovate' ourselves so that our children can have a chance of survival.

Not for the sake of profit, but for the sake of future generations.

And no, the governments, politicians and the like won't do it, they can't, they don't create the world - we do, the creators, the innovators.

It is our responsibility to switch focus and really look at how we can apply our knowledge to the real world 'problems'.

Pinterest's long term value (50+ years) is zero in my opinion, even though it might create a nice bubble in the short term.

Re: Pinterest Raises $367M at $11B valuation

#96

Post by sharkweek »

bobbles wrote: post #51

I love pinterest because the type of people on Hacker News are obviously not the target audience and so can't understand it. Someone gets engaged. Almost every day between that day and their wedding will be on pinterest to get great ideas on every single item / food / clothing involved. It's like amazon referrals on steroids

If my wife could one-click shop on Pinterest? Oh boy...

Re: Pinterest Raises $367M at $11B valuation

#97

Post by fadsasda432 »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #42
aetherson wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want him to explain the entire global economy in a comment thread? That seems a little unreasonable. What's the actual substance of your complaint? Are you worried that Pinterest can buy Armenia? It can't. Are you just offended that two not-very-comparable numbers are X > Y instead of Y > X? That doesn't seem like a big deal to me. Are you complaining that Armenians are poor? That's perhaps a big deal, but we don…

I'm not complaining about anything. I'm saying perhaps we overvalue marketing in general.

I agree with that. We live in a marketing bubble and the power of advertising will decrease a lot in the next years as new generations will just get more and more immune to it. Which is actually a good thing.

Re: Pinterest Raises $367M at $11B valuation

#99

Post by nemo44x »

bcg1 wrote: post #64

That's larger than the market cap of LG, Citrix, Mitsubishi, Isuzu, Nvidia, to name a few. And those are companies that produce real goods and have real assets. But is it overvalued? Only time will tell

Producing real goods leads to small margins. Materials, manufacturing and transporting are not cheap to do. Technology companies enjoy high valuations based on their generally very high margins.
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