By the way, Peter Thiel already sold the majority of his FB shares around the time of the IPO. See:<p><a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/peter-thiel-facebook-stock-sale-billion-dollars-364152" rel="nofollow">https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/peter-thiel-facebook-...</a><p>Notice that at the time the article was written he had sold about 37 million shares and had only 5.6 million left. The prices he got were absolute peanuts compared to the current price -- he sold 17 mln shares for $38, and another 20 million for about $20. The current price is $180.<p>I am not writing this to criticize Peter Thiel, obviously the stock market is very difficult to predict. And, unfortunately, I did not buy FB at $20, so I cannot say I had a better mastery of the market than him. The point I want to make is that is downright silly to make any conclusions about FBs valuation based on this sale.
This is non-news. The sale was "part of a previously established trading plan" -- VCs set these up all the time to slowly sell off shares in a way that's not disruptive to companies. If you owned 10% of a company and sold all that stock in one swoop, you would crater the stock price and piss off employees. Thiel had already sold over a $1B worth of shares by 2016 and FB stock is up 60%+ this year.
Holy Cow! That is Insane. Facebook's market cap is half a trillion. As somebody that knows nothing I cannot believe that it is that high. It is on par with Amazon. Anybody thinks we really are in a bubble?<p>Relevant Market Caps:<p>Facebook: 525.34B, PE Ratio: 33.61<p>Alphabet: 727.00B, PE Ratio: 35.12<p>Amazon: 558.65B, PE Ratio: 292.63<p>Apple: 895.91B, PE Ratio: 18.99<p>Tesla: 52.64B<p>Ford: 48.08B, PE Ratio: 10.98<p>IBM: 140.35B, PE Ratio: 12.65<p>Microsoft: 641.20B, P/E Ratio: 28.12
Facebook has been slow to realize that ads that they show are effectively messages from Facebook. Which is why they are culpable in so much gunk, they don't screen ads well enough and they let absolute nonsense rule the feeds. It's really a poor case of selling out to attractive bids. Now that they started camouflaging ads as regular posts from your friends, it's even worse. Now they exert influence and pretend they don't.
Peter is a smart guy, and this does suggest Facebook is not worth holding long term. Sean Parker's comments a few days ago were not positive either. Anecdata-wise, things are not looking too rosy; many of my more intellectual and interesting friends have abandoned the platform, barring the occasional message (e.g. if they lost their phone and had to change numbers) - the less interesting people I know (not friends, but acquaintances) seem to be fully immersed in Facebook still. Not sure Facebook can even hold the attention of those people much longer, as the platform is simply feels noisy, boring and out of date!
Has anyone else noticed the shift in their use of Facebook? I'm starting to use it more and more for selling and buying things hyper local than craigslist. I've had so much better luck selling people who don't show up and try to haggle you down further with facebook than craigslist. It's become my one stop shop to offload junk I don't need, vs use it as a social network.
I have a feeling that something scandalous is going to drop about Peter Thiel in the near future. This news comes on the heels of YC cutting ties with him [0].<p>[0] <a href="https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/19/y-combinator-severs-ties-with-peter-thiel/" rel="nofollow">https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/19/y-combinator-severs-ties...</a>
I don't think this has to do with politics (or Presidential Candidates). It's too big of a business decision.<p>I don't know enough, but I am curious if someone who has spent the time and effort researching this...Is Facebook's future limited? Is there a new challenger?<p>Thiel continues to swim against the current and win. Is the writing on the wall?
I recently bought Facebook shares at $1.79 each, so my view is the polar opposite of Peter Thiel. Here's my estimate of what will happen to the components of Facebook revenue over next 10 years:<p>1. Number of Facebook users * average user income grows 50%
(keep in mind that new Facebook users are mostly in developing countries)<p>2. Amount of time on internet spent by average user grows 100%<p>3. Number of ads served to an average user per hour of internet time grows 30%<p>4. Effectiveness of an average Facebook ad grows 160% (ie. 10% per year)<p>Now 1.5 * 2 * 1.3 * 2.6 = 10.14, so I'm guessing Facebook's <i>revenue</i> will grow tenfold in a decade. Their <i>profit</i> will likely grow even faster because expenses will grow more slowly than revenue.
Could this be the begining of the end for Facebook? Is 2017 for Facebook what 2009 was for BlackBerry and Nokia (when they were still getting <i>record</i> profits and revenues - they were already toast, they just didn't know it yet)?<p><a href="https://www.emarketer.com/content/snapchat-snags-second-place-in-social-media-stickiness" rel="nofollow">https://www.emarketer.com/content/snapchat-snags-second-plac...</a><p>The significant drop in engagement may also be why Facebook is dumping the media sites from the news (ha!) feed like a hot potato. Although that was a very Facebook thing to do, it still seemed a little desperate and like it was happening sooner than expected.