HN user

wkasel

40 karma

La based entrepreneur & hacker of life.

Posts7
Comments24
View on HN

Interesting assessment. I live in Silicon Valley, I don't own a share of FB, I do trade frequently. Like you, I made an assessment. My frusteration comes mostly from reading on tech blogs what Facebook "needs to do". Techcrunch acts like they are Bloomberg or something, which goes exactly with my broad brush stroked point as you said.

It's actually the valuation I care about vs. the stock price, but people tend to understand that better, so I use that as a unit instead of valuation.

The bottom line is yes, I write pointed, and passionately, I'm not personally at a loss for FB, I'm just tired of hearing "expert opinions" even on Bloomberg.

With all due respect, I completely disagree. If you understand the fundamentals of an IPO, as I explained below you would know that there is a 180 day lock-up period for employees, this means that employees haven't been able to sell their stock yet. When they do sell their stock it will be at $10/$15/share. The only folks who made money on the IPO were Merrill Lynch who SHORTED IT!

You're typically supposed to IPO at the point you are preparing to grow. Not flatline. Your original argument is exactly what I'm saying is the misguided philosophy of Silicon Valley, and the Tech Community as a whole. Again, no offense, but step back and look at what I just said. I have a point. This IPO fucked everyone, including Zuckerberg, employees, and anyone else who still holds shares which as I said above is every single employee.

Logical explanation, however the point of an IPO is not just liquidity in for your employees, but also to raise money for the company, and allow the public to buy in. If you don't price it so the price goes up, then you're doing everyone, even your shareholders a dis-service because they have a 180 day lockup period, so when the stock is at $15/share at the end of lockup, you actually screwed employees as well. The only person who actually made money on this was Merrill Lynch.

if you are microsoft, you need to realize that you will never do anything that is going to win over the tech community. Refocus on the young, un-opinionated demographic. These 16-24 year old average college student doesn't care if you ripped off seattle computer company, or if you have a crappy OS, they like your gaming console, so buy some things they are interested in, and make services that bundle with the OS. Ive heard rumours of a socialized OS, this is interesting, this could make $$$. Dont even need 45B.

you know, the more and more i get into this business with my own start up I am realizing this. But because I am not even 20, (1 week, may 8) I equal make this stereotype true atleast on some level.

It boils down to experience. 'kids' as ill even refer to myself as, create these applications, websites, whatever, and they think they can make the millions. Sometimes this is true, but what usually happens if they begin to talk to VC's is they tell them they are not capable to run their own company.

"Get a degree, get your ass kicked at a company, then start your own" - Guy Kawasaki

I think people think this because, yes it does happen, but more times than not its people with M.B.A's or a lot of experience that team up with a vet technie to start these.

-William Kasel JumpFox - Monetizing Social Media www.jumpfox.com